When I Write Poem by Robert Rorabeck

When I write I write
Maybe an hour or 2 a day
but the #s stay with
Me like lead
From my fingertips
Seeping deeper
Ink on my lips
My face molts
I rust
When I write the feeling
Creeps through me like
The morning after too
Much alcohol
Cold shivers a mirror
I can’t get it out of my face
And her
When I write
She turns on over my bed
A lamp shaped like a leg
Filled with effervescing
Beer and drunken fish,
Possibilities,
Prizes,
Games
And carnivals
When I write God puts
Her rib back into me
The first pain
Her breath in me
Her love in me
When I write I can’t get
Her out,
And it would be okay
If I had her,
But I don’t even know her number
When I write her favorite
Color is blue
When I write she only
Wears a fig leaf
And my fingers
When I write
Her fingers tear apart
My temples
Like rotten fruit
When I write
God flies for hours my
Teeth taste like microwaved metal
When I she’s just
There
She’s just there the next door
Over
When I write
I cup her breast
Oh, God, how long it’s been
When I write for just an hour
It’s all it takes
And she’s with me all day
Nakedness and beautiful eyes
And milk and sweat and
Redness and the places on her
I put myself
When I write
When I write
It’s like mercury settling
In a crown around my temple
Silt
Gently
Higher and higher
When I write I’m Harvey
Silver
Jack Micheline’s alter ego
Jewish actor
Rimbaudian misfit
When I write
I’m with her
When I write I’m burned
Through Bukowksi’s fire
When I write I’m in Michelangelo’s
Fresco
Reaching out for God
His hand the promise
The self I lie in when
I write
She’s in my mouth
I can taste her
It’s just too much not to have
Her
I put the pen down to
Spit her out but I’ve
Already swallowed her
Candy poison
When I write
It’s like being inside her.