Temporary Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Another day upon which the distance cannot be
Speculated,
The beautiful dance of boys and girls in their own worlds,
The slightly less effective gravitations of limbed bodies,
Grandmothers warm in summertime caskets atop the hills,
The conductors chimney smoking near the devil’s rock,
Calling out the hours of arrivals and departures,
And dad upstairs sweeping:
I dream, I dream of little things, of fresh mowed grass
And how a manned dragonfly happens upon
a woman’s pungently shampooed hair;
Or a marriage bed and children, flitting there:
a daughter to name
Temporary, a bright spot in the yard and dogs
Leaping cheeky. I could go to work right now, forget my dreams,
Put on a fine gentlemanly outfit and
Take a woman’s hand that brushes next to mine by our
Shared happenstance- Waitresses do it all the time. They
Fall so sublimely for what lies next to them,
Salivating over what is served instead of what might be
Searched for- In the morning the sky will clear, and my fingers
Will yawn- They will winnow like sailors stretching a tawny
Sail. The entire world will be opening, comely and
Well stated, and I will wonder where all the beautiful women
Have gone, enchanted by their happenstance- I will
Buy a little house beside their rivers
and wait for them handily in my verdant yard:
That will be my job until one notices me,
Perhaps a sommelier with blue eyes, and stops along her way
To wherever she was being taken,
Disentangling her garments from the course,
And vowing in time to know the fair weather which blows
About my head the way a young mountain may sometimes
Attract the curious clouds,
And perambulating with her towards the various rooms,
I will ask her what she thinks of the name Temporary,
For a girl, a daughter,
And if there is any work she needs doing.