The Regular Crypts Poem by Robert Rorabeck

They put the nameless men
Whose mothers have died
Into the regular crypts.

Two black men carry him out
Of the apartment in California,
Where he must have sat for
Some while waiting for
His unfamiliar friends-
Not wanting to be discovered,
He’d swallowed the few pages
Of his unfinished novel,
The way a spy swallows microfilm:
There in his unfocused eye, though,
Like an imperfection,
A fleck of failing memory,
Not one single government worker
Noticed, was the reflection
Of her he still carried with him.
Who could this woman be?
Do you see her here,
In the corner of his eye?
And here again,
As if it was her at the very last?
Whose name we can only guess,
Who continued even in some small
Part to affect his physical carriage
Who could this woman be?
Who could this woman be?
Was she even from our time?

That concludes our presentation.
Will someone please turn on the lights,
So we can head out for lunch.