Pale Poem by Robert Rorabeck

You plan for long silences, days at the mall with
Your comely siblings,
Window shopping for firemen and maypoles-
Losing me to the bitter hooks of my wild isolations,
Crooking my neck over the power lines to
Billboards and the soft bellies of airplanes;
But none it can make anything right:
Tucked away in your mountain hideaway, skinned by
Rainbows-
I am left with the need to cut out the heart of my
Infantile need and feed it to sharper reptiles:
Now in your kitchens, cutting your things, your children
Throwing all of your loose change to the gold fish
And Chinese carp there in the pool behind your head,
Why you never once think to look for me as the shadows
Pass softly over you, freckled and warm,
And you drink your glass of red,
Draining me through lips that in comparison make
Rosy carnage pale.