Whose Time Is Still Coming Poem by Robert Rorabeck

The snake pulls back its hood
And spits disgustedly at the rope trick.
I gave Kelly opals
And hid in the bathroom:
I am hiding there still while the movie plays,
And I have pissed myself.
Already all the ghosts have come out and haunted
And gone back home,
And Kelly is a mother, and she goes home too
And lays down like a velveteen cathedral in all of her
Tattoos;
And she forgets about me, and the swings we
Enjoyed upon: She doesn’t recognize how beautiful I
Am,
Absolutely,
And somewhere in Missouri there is a riverboat who
Has exploded quite luxuriously maybe a century
Before us,
And bits of it are still falling like
Meteorites for the forth of July;
It is still falling,
And I shoot off to sleep in my bygone lonely, and Kelly
Curls up in her tinderbox in the saw grass beside
Her husband;
And she has the easiest time forgetting about me,
Like a brother who has long since gone before her
Whose time is still coming.