What Truly Is Poem by Robert Rorabeck

If I could be what I am not, I would be a Ferris wheel
And assign you the wind. Guess where I would look?
Or I would have you tear pages out of dime store novels
And give them to your throat as airplanes, to let you
Take them casually to the orange groves, your naked dressing
Room to read over casually, and to laugh;

Or, I would like to be an imperfection in your eye without
Anchor; something that floats around according to where you look.
When you are watching migrations then you would throw me
Up like snow and I would float down for the rest of the day,
Coming across your gaze while you ate lunch or whatnot;

The world is full of quiet places and those are where I look for
You, on any old lawn out behind the house. The rattlesnake slithers
Across your belly when he has nowhere else to go and his tongue is
Tapping the humid air as if it were sweet confection;

And if I had time and was smart enough to get myself out of
School for the day, I would kick off on some trustworthy swings,
And fan my shadow back and forth across your shoulder
And we could imbibe in the perfect quiet of best friends;
And go off together like the fine end of something, and forget all
These words and birthmarks which place us in our cars.
Instead, we could be what truly is:

What we make time to be when no one else is looking,
Or paying any mind.