To Be Noticed By Your Eyes Poem by Robert Rorabeck

In families, the warmth of science’s loneliness disguised
In religion’s degrees: You whom think him your lover,
Cannot actually touch him, your husband, for the both of
You are forever encased in an electronic sheath—
You have to go to the sun; it’s thermal reactions the metamorphosis—
Butterflies over Nagasaki and Pompeii—
While I was sleeping on your roof one hour before yesterday—
And in those words, filigreed with imperfections and enuendo,
I wrote you a thousand poems written in a language you do
Not know—
And when the coffins of your lovers and your ancestors
Are laid beneath the ground, they do not actually touch that
Place—they are developed from the ectoplasms of outer space—
Better to be cremated in the fire that burns in these pages—
Better to have seperated from those lesser sages,
And awakened in these momentary arms—
Folded airplanes and paper butterflies dying as they try to
Cross the canal to be noticed by your eyes.