Neither Handsome Nor Romantic Poem by Robert Rorabeck

So you have a pool
And you pay your dues to the gated community:
I have three dogs
And all my teeth and scars;
I can slip in anytime I want and slap my scarred
Belly and smear your beautiful crenulations
While you and your lawful others snore:
I can proclaim to the sky,
And all that is my natural habitat revealed with
The saber-toothed alligators when the lightning
Flashes:
I can sell my things, and keep on waiting to be
Published;
I can fish all night on the Lake Worth Pier,
Because I’ve been thinking all day long that I am
Frightened but insouciant;
I haven’t bought new clothes in ten years,
So I doubt I’ll be able to eat under the ambience of
You phosphorescent dress codes, dear;
But I am hung over, and in general I appeal to Lucifer
While the rocks are gossiping atop the
Highest spurs of our America; I don’t believe you’ve
Ever made it that far,
Where the dogs are scratching in the snow,
Drunken the goblet of Vampires? No;
But I’ll let them in to creep in a silent chorus line
Long toothed, hungry for you- sheep;
I almost failed high school, because I constructed a swing-
Set in my tomb, and all day long arced in it
Like a censer in a silken loom- And I remember
Stealing your bicycle, and riding it between Chaucer and
The South of France,
Down in the humid belly of Florida where the professors
Danced;
And now you are husbanded in your jocular curfews;
You don’t remember the scheme that I planted with you-
It’s like as if I was always told, I’m only 1/64 Jew,
And too you it means nothing- the night is askance,
Abrupt and unromantic- I can see you highlighted in the
Dinner theatres of the theatric Titanic;
I have to cover this new half of my face as I think
Of other girls on recently discovered planets-
Ending this session, I must admit that, yes,
I’ve lost track of something,
Neither handsome nor romantic.