Pronouncing My Given Name Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Strange Saturday without cartoons made to
Laugh endlessly in the heart of Shanghai—
My wife is here
And in her presence my loneliness,
My American vagueries and insociant laziness:
I cannot understand Mandarin,
Girls laugh when they look at me on the street:
Cover their mouths, bat their eyes
And go on their way—
Thirty million Chinese and no one here to
Learn my particular English.
My one year old son still hasn’t learned to walk,
But knows the Chinese and English words
For cat and dog
And uh-oh—this sort of life is fond of us,
I in a limbo no one cares about, no one remembers,
Just a strange face standing out in a sea of
Assured regularity,
And my wife stable with her family—
And no longer have my muses to complain about,
No more pretty visions so far away from me—
But I have a roof
And a heart that has trouble pronouncing my given name.