Traveler's Song Poem by Robert Rorabeck

I’ll have to get drunk to move;
And that’s why I’ve packed my bags, and collected my
Dogs and dolls,
And given proper notice-
And I am leaping across country and wearing an erudite
Mustache, and puritanical girdle;
And wishing I was more sound, or that I could swim straight
Across the Kennedy Space center
Before liftoff;
That my eyes were blue, and good for collecting your eyes-
That I didn’t worship cemeteries,
That I wrote poems as good and cleaning as a little black girl
Does while skipping through chalk:
That I was Sara Teasdale in her eternal bed,
Listening to those rhymes I collected and stole,
Sweating without air-conditioning,
And staring blindly at the stewardesses legs and streams,
And getting all choked up
Because I wasn’t old or religious enough to be with you,
And I’ve almost forgotten that I was supposed to be
Jack all along,
And you’re my candle, or aren’t you: That burning tale of a fairytale,
A religious allegory like cannibalistic hamburger bloodied in the somme:
I loved you: Oh dear, I loved you,
Especially on Christmas dinner, a fable for blue jays, laughing,
And still a fable: jet airplanes cutting through the silence,
Causing beautiful scars for the lonely commuters in Saint Augustine,
Or Saint Lewis:
Looking up, drooling jawed,
Because I am on the move, and I have died, but I go
Leaping over the yard where the sprinklers turn across your
Naked body so young and strong,
A flame that licks my heals,
That perpetually kindles my traveler’s song.