Whoever Poem by Robert Rorabeck

You deserve better words than mine,
Angled in soft lies, like prehistoric trout found
In the oily conservation of their brief lives:
I flow upstream for you with all I can,
But I am thinking only of myself, like into a mirror
At dusk. A little more money, and I can buy
A house at the sea’s lip and swim in her for my job,
And say to you when you are not there,
Now this is you in perfect matter: this is you
In your wedding dress, the one you wore that day
As you walked down the street kissing towards
The trees’ canopy, and the sunlight rushing to fondle
You and swim around your bosom like goldfish won
At tossing games; When you are on the street,
Strangers and birds stop to palaver with you, but
You don’t have time to translate their harangues of love,
Sometimes you even forget your name, and cussing
You try to forget even more, and the secrets that lie
Inside you have an entire nation within you, plusing and
Adding into you the infinite ways things may combine:
But I give to you no cessation in my lines, for they crowd
Into the next enjambment like force feeding French kisses,
And I know I haven’t figured you out, or done you
Justice, but you still pretend to know where you are,
But you are also here, for here is a kingdom I have
Gardened, and a castle with a sundial for your nudity anytime
Of day: Lay across me with your eyes, and I will say I
Love you, even if you don’t know why, or who you are.