Robert Rorabeck - For As Many Hours

I carry pictures of that miraculous cloak,
But I will never make it that far to Canterbury,
Or wherever;
And it is almost as if now that I have gone down beneath the sea:
I can see you changing her, Alma:
I can feel you body almost disappearing the way it does at night
Laying beside your man:
You were pregnant with Michael when you were sixteen,
While I was kicking out the lights of my own dream:
There are many lights refracted deep in the beds of her sea,
And you can pray to your virgin and sea them all while you lay
Beside your man;
And nothing that I have had to say about you has been enough to
Describe a single one of your fingerprints,
Or the way you breath around me the three days a week we have together,
The nine hours a day:
I think it must be more time than you spend consciously with your husband,
But he will make you harvest the rabbits that you love anyways:
Bring them over to my house and save them, and we can start a new family;
And the sea will love us especially,
And we can still work together nine hours a day,
And sleep for as many hours together for so many nights.

Robert Rorabeck

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