F. Scott Fitzgerald Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Meretricious beauty—the definition of my very own
Muse struggling toward higher art—
The same way that F. Scott Fitzgerald loved his wife:
For no reason except for her chassis
For a very long time, and she was unfaith to him
With a fighter pilot—
As he looked out to the sea—and drank—and drank—
Imagining what was abandoned there,
But it was unfathomable,
So he wrote The Great Gatsby—separating himself
Into two parts—
For recollection and catharsis—and drank and drank,
While his very own wife went insane
And burned up in a fire after he had died from a heart
Attack—
But I still tried to teach him the very summer of
My June—Not really understanding him,
But appreciating his alcoholism—
Like a goldfish won on a Ferris wheel swimming
In a windowsill that overflowed with all of his most
Insensible lights.