Unrequited Receptions Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Empty all the ink onto this page,
Spill it out if it means anything:
Drive around her old neighborhood with
Your window down, smelling her, the places
In which she exercised and farted like
A hummingbird:
Hum her busty patriotism on your lips,
Paint up your scars by sunlight beside the
Pool. Touch your cousin’s swollen belly,
Like a cantaloupe: She is in her third trimester,
And her husband, injured in Iraq is building
Her a 3,000 square foot home in Idaho:
Put down these things in the camouflaging gust,
The way an octopus or squid goes to escape:
Put your finger to your lips,
And then surprise her with a laugh, admire
Her work space and how well she keeps herself
For the ballroom of eyes. Don’t let down,
Or lay in the anthills with the thousands of poisonous
Abdomens no bigger than the science-fiction of
Far away stars and planets, the soundless revolutions:
See her face, and know that her sex is for you:
Made to fit together as mountains enfold a sea,
And so overturn the night’s vase and overspill into
Her all the humming and extemporaneous ecstasy,
The way better men do it and are able to earn their
Turkey sandwiches, legs folded beneath the power lines,
so do it for her, and call her out
Into the dusk of her settling neighborhood and kneel
Before her, christen by the cypress and evacuated
Homes of cicadas,
And tell her those few words which are hers by right,
The crickets like the static of empty streets,
To either listen to, or ignore.