The Face Of An Artist Poem by Robert Rorabeck

I do not want to laugh where your green-eyes are
Partners—
In the subway where you stare at my father,
And the abandoned notions of your cousins come in
And come in—and come in:
You are overcrowded and there is nothing left
To be stolen—when I look at myself in the mirror
I no longer think of you,
But I do not look at myself for very long:
Here is not the face of an artist—nor
A teacher—already growing the shadows that
Will come tomorrow, here is a man just trying to survive.