Over Both Of Our Towns Poem by Robert Rorabeck

There—in her eyes that swallowed me,
Was an untrue light,
Stolen from other heavens that were neither
Greater or less than her own—
I realized only later that she
Swung with me near the ocean
In the same park my mother once took me to
Years ago,
Only for meat and gold,
And other possessions
And other necessities;
It took a trip to China to escape her—
I wrote her a thousand poems before that time.
I cannot say I used her for the poems.
If not my only muse,
She was my last- but not all destructive,
As she must have been should I have been
A greater poet—
She did not destroy me,
But forced me to get a job
And to become a lesser man,
Which, acceptably, seems to be the fate for
All things that wish to remain alive
Or at least to grow old—
Remaining with her family, she celebrates
Her childrens' birthdays one after the other—
I still keep statues to her in my house
Even though I have children of my own-
Once I save up enough money
I will move farther away from her—
But for now I sit here atop a bed she
Thankfully never touched,
As I listen to the very same airplanes that
Travel over both of our towns.