To Invite Her Heartbeat Home Poem by Robert Rorabeck

I have lost myself the starship because I am
Not marigold-
I have failed like sunbeam tainted on the rust
Of the trailer parks;
Where the little girls wilt like flowers too
Succulent on the chlorine pools;
Like the little Madonnas enmeshed as tricks from
The traveling fair,
All strung out with dwarfish conquistadors and
Their bottle collects on the inflatable rafts;
As if they were magic rugs;
And I have two wrists, as butterflies have their wings;
And everything is paper thin,
As her love and star beams:
And what I am doing again I don’t know,
Trying to become more asymmetrical beside the highway
Coiling in the glut;
Underside musseling by the commuters’ sea;
And the delta of her grotto’s sphere, where if you are
A heavier element you must go;
Where, I helped her move her furniture as if I was her
Friend, while the other girls slept-
Trying to pretend I am dying as I drink this beer,
Trying to say I love you to an innocent friend-
A word upon the lips of a coffin epitomizes the human race
Which I despise, though for the brevity of innocence,
I thought to call her near to invite her heartbeat home.