Chosen Insanity Poem by Robert Rorabeck

With the rest of us
You are living well
In your chosen insanity;
I know because I sometimes
Cut your voice into my
Wrist.
Then ordinary veins become
Red lips,
And you speak to me,
You speak to me of him,
Your ordinary husband.
You describe the affluent
Sex and say,
Say you are doing well,
Quite well
Like an oracle
Sleeping in a red well
Somehow much deeper
Than my wrist, so I cut
Deeper still
To hear you crying
All that you own living
Inside him: The house
You rent,
The car you drive
Somehow fits
And you dress in your
Ordinary insanity,
Your influence.
You are doing
Quite well
With the rest of us.

My father is digging up
A hundred acres
And putting in water spickets
Every twenty inches
So the earthworms
Don’t grow thirsty
As the Queen Bug
Insists.
In the trenches,
He is fighting his hell.

My mother is doing
Everything people are asking
Her to do for them:
She is doing the work of
An army of prostitutes.
She puts her prints
On the pricks.
She washes dishes
And encores, she bows
To her father’s wishes.
In fact, she married
Her father,
As he insisted;
It is her particular insanity,
And she is doing quite well,
With all our compliments.

For three decades
I have run away and
Chained my fists against
The backyard fences.
Where the dogs live,
I live under the house
With them. I refuse to
Change. I bark at
Strangers,
I follow their scents.
Across state lines,
I hunt fugitives.
I check for ticks,
But down deep in night
I still hear your
Heart beating in my
Wrists,
My ordinary wrists.

I am living with the rest of us
And we are doing quite well,
Ordinarily,
In our chosen insanity.