If Pain Poem by Robert Rorabeck

If pain, then let it be slow like mercury-
Let it eat the moon in all of its hemispheres,
Entwine like beautiful barbed-wire glowing under the sea,
Time and time again around her neck,
Until the blood is roses,

If pain, let it dally for many years all around
My sunken eyes, my raccoon eyes, the nocturnal visions,
Where he is under her skirt like a welcomed thief,
Like a heirloom clutching her neck,
Or a brooch of lips tucked into her breast like
A giant infant at the tug,

If pain, let it be the wounded memories which make
Dogs raise moist muzzles and howl from hairy throats,
The playgrounds of abandoned winters,
And old men hauling their guts in red wagons
Back and forth from the store to loneliness’,

If pain, welcome,
For you accentuate all my failures,
Leave entire pages unread, find out I am a plagiarist
Whose dictionary consists of three dozen frosted words,
Eaten up by serial killers with the rime of screams under
Their nails,

If pain, enter,
For I know you,
And you have stuck around since my childhood,
To dig the graves of little animals, to bow my head as she walks away.