Yet A Mirage I Knew To Be Poem by Robert Rorabeck

I remember the wind tunnels of Spain on
Christmas:
There were no gifts,
But a lost guitar, and I got drunk and the tattoo
Of a sword now faded on my thirty year old
Gut,
And the drunk boats are swimming too gray to
Be Arthur Rimbaud,
But I am still dressing out for physical educations,
Running my laps I cannot possibly ever win,
Eating my crackerjacks And swinging my bats
Looking for better and better prizes
AS the more beautiful and younger girls come in sweltering,
Bosomy and without care
While the young white tent breaths,
And they’ve never read Shakespeare,
So they don’t care how many words are missing or misspelled;
And I can feel myself in them.
But I can only love one of them at a time, Sharon
Like a single rose on your grave,
And a tender dog wining there. I would not feel comfortable taking
You out to dinner,
But the castillos are still beautiful, and I’ve stolen so many fireworks;
And I am no longer beautiful,
But this is how it works,
And I’ll love you forever going through the turnstiles of
The other world,
Rejoining our common ancestors until we can’t feel alone again;
And this is how it works,
So eventually the lions will surcease from yawning up to the
Constellations and settling down continue with
Their Christmas meals,
Of the long legged ibex slaughters out in the middle of
The Kalahari,
A place I felt you in,
Yet a mirage I knew to be unreal.