Pretty Lips On The Holy Virgin Mary Poem by Robert Rorabeck

No liquor and I’m droll- Scarred and more,
Waiting for rain with the spit shine poor-
Here is my apartment. I sleep on the floor-
Walden is a long way from here, so I plagiarize,
Look myself in the face slantwise, wandering,
Wandering: To untie her ribbons, unlace into dreams,
Outside the faithless traffic streams;
And if I had a poem in me today, this can’t be it-
I slept all day, or most of it, and I missed the poem;
It stuck to something else just as imperfect and purred
Around her pretty dark lips- There are always lips,
And they are always pretty, pretty lips around the whole
D*mned city. Yesterday, I saw pretty Asian lips at
The library, what perfect commentary;
and statues with pewter lips,
And lips on my cousin Terry,
But I haven’t kissed any of those lips in so long,
Very; and pretty lips on the holy Virgin Mary.