Was That All It Was? Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Was that all it was,
To call me once to see again
My ugly face echoed in my voice
Five states away? To question me
Like a concerned middle-class mother
Whose daughter is dating a Chinese vagrant?
Did you not hear me whisper I love
You over the line, a much softer rendition
Than the last 4th of July, when I shouted
You name to the night’s sky-line,
As the fireworks burst their bloody colorful
Bodies overhead like exploding deities,
As dead cars and ghost trains
passed away along Highway 66….
Was that all it was?
I could die in a plane crash tomorrow
Like Patsy Cline, I could fall to pieces,
and you still wouldn’t call
To give your condolences….
Call me, and we will not worry about
The long silences,
The way your mind skips town,
Leaving your lips with nothing to put on,
As you, humming a stroll, with pretty boys
From your town who you are not so far away from,
Forget my name and the nervous ways I came
On to you once or twice after six years….
Was that all it was
Or are you secretly engaged?
I could tell you wanted to tell me something,
But what was it? Are you seeing somebody?
Or do you not remember the ways you put on for men,
The type of men you like. You say I don’t know you,
And I don’t, but that has not stopped me from writing
You into every line, because that is all I know to do.
To lay you down as if in bed,
And to run my tongue across you like ink on a page,
Making your body numb to the hurt and pain,
Even when you are so far away from me,
Even when you call his name and forget mine….
But, was that all it was….
Was it the last time?