The Only Feeling That I Can Feel Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Little children speak to the bird houses near the sea;
It seems that they have been growing up and up,
Pantomimes of who they ought to be:
Little children as soft as the lights who weep inside the
Houses of toy soldiers while their
Women are counting sheep;
But the neighborhood has no need to worry, because all of its
Property lines are as soft as they can be:
While at the heart of the neighborhood, down past the tourists
And so near the sea as to be touching, the fort is just as steady as it
Can be:
The fort that has a soul of copper cannons, where I have strolled
And touched the coquina fleshes of the ancient and prosperous
World;
And where I have wished to love girls here that I will never hold,
But who I have seen like phantoms weightless up and
Down the prosperous rows;
And maybe the way I have been calling them has been selfish and
Unreal,
But if it is false, then false is the only feeling that I can feel.