Who I Am Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Palm trees are so humble they only blush their
Reasons for god at the very top of
Their anorexic spindles,
And maybe that is why you are so beautiful,
Making love to quiet gentleman,
Listening to the hungry tourisms in your shop;
And we are separated by so many canals,
The silent tortures,
The American avenues without any gondolas;
And there are so many homeless under the
Skirts of these empty boxes-
They throw quite a fit of gin, too; but it is not
Even sad,
Because they only want what the best of the bankers
And politicians want.
They just don’t know how, and they don’t even
Sing songs;
But you have a dimple in your chin. You are an orchard
All to yourself, and you know how to fight,
And your daughter was lost in the forgotten architectures
Of Spain but found her way back according to her
Understandings of subtle taste,
That she inherited from you, which is a wonderful thing;
As you stand like a xenophobic fish, a basilisk all to yourself
In Heraclitus’s rivers,
Which is what makes you delectably beautiful,
And is the foremost of the many reasons why you do not
Care to remember who I am.