Cold Beer And Web-Pages Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Derelict of friends,
I look at beautiful pictures of
Fit tourists in Colorado,
Half-Asians and the Jewish
Boy I remember sleepovers with:
Street Fighter, Cathy Ireland,
And ballrooms of ineffective light
Over the backyard pool-
His sister dating a kung-fu artist,
And the first time I got drunk
Watching Alien 3,
Girls in high school fully clothed
Who are now lawyers and
Sommeliers who sleep at the
Neck of the woods but go no further:
In the pictures there are self-effected
Smirks, eyes sealed shut from
Greenish smoke,
And all the undeveloped afternoons
Of videogames, the eventual
Slip away from college,
Quiet expulsions; he never had
His bar mitzvah, in Telluride they
Ride the ski-lift over her new restaurant:
They make raids on banks,
Have snowball fights. I am applying
For my PhD. I have a published thesis,
But I play videogames in my parents’
Basement most afternoons when I
Am done feeding the horses; I remember
How the lions roar, and the tourists
Sweated. I think about reading something
Academic by Auden, but his rhymes are
Routine. I write insouciantly;
They fall in love the same way, and
In the casual meetings order burgers and
Fries. The world is a wonderful scar-less
Place which rolls over in the sunny grass,
Panting without abstraction:
His sister eventually gave up
On martial arts, and married another
Banker from Poland. They have
Never read of Sylvia Plathe;
He designs web-pages and drinks
Cold beer.