I’ve climbed forty of the fourteen thousand
Foot mountains in Colorado,
Sometimes four in a day, past tree line
Where the rocks gossip in a lightning storm-
I’ve heard them;
But who knew I was ranging all around you,
Like trying to cast an esoteric spell,
While you were busy drinking and selling wine,
Being pollinated in and out by your chosen
Man- And it is a beautiful town in you live in,
In the valley where nothing can be killed or
Rearranged- While I’ve run further away,
Checking my drafts to reassure that I cannot spell,
Letting it trail out behind me as a sort of
Perfunctory Will; and now I’ll have bad credit,
As I have bad skin, but I still live in a dream-
A dream sometimes of Florida, and sometimes
OF Colorado, and sometimes right here-
A celibate invention I keep to myself, sleep
Walking with my dogs amidst slash pine and
Standard bred horses, often pretending that you
Come at night to lay with me,
In the morning leaving nothing that could be
Ascribed to a fairytale, but the malingering of your
Perfumes in my dysfunctioning soul.
Robert Rorabeck
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-malingering-of-your-perfumes-in-my-dysfunctioning-soul/
