I.

On a car trip to destiny
Tall Rob muses over his life.
These people in the car can laugh
now. Can listen to songs about
lives like theirs. She giggles at his
jokes; he puts on his manliest
voice and deals with things, even asks
for directions. Tall Rob sleeps and
dreams crazy dreams about playing
ball and making people proud, for
once. He dreams about being on
the big screen, about being “normal.”

He wakes up to 101.1.
Man, what are these people listening
to? He’d like to test them and every
one else. See how they do in his
world. In his world, these tough-as-a-
tree-trunk people would not survive.
They would take tests and tests and tests.
They would never pass them, neither.
He would make some rules but they would
not be anything much, just basic
stuff like be good to others.

When Tall Rob and her and him get
there, they cross the parking lot and
walk over the disabled parking
symbols on the floor, like
exclamation points on his story.
He prepares for disappointment;
her and him prepare to break bad
news and they all plunge in with crossed
fingers.

II.

Tall Rob is so tall the sky
seems closer, his reach is
but so far.
He’s so tall he towers
above all of us in a different “real.”
He can see the sun above the clouds
and when he cries it feels like it’s raining,
down here.

Tall Rob writes poems
about being like a caged bird
about noticing the shadow of his own feathers
about being alone.
Sometimes he is like a kite,
in his poems, flying so high but stuck to a string.

Tall Rob says he’s alone
’cept for God who loves him
and the sun that blinds him in a good way.
But why are things like this,
why is he stupid? How can the sun come out
everyday when the world is bad?

You can’t hear him singing
over you, thinking over you,
good friends with God.
You keep Tall Rob down,
then he brings you down with
sad stories and sad eyes, sad fingers, oh man.
Stop pulling
Tall Rob’s skinny arms,
good for nothing fingers,
awkward elbows, rope.

Tall Rob knows you,
he knows himself, he knows Him,
he knows what it takes and how to get there but
bad DNAs tie him to the ground.
At any moment Tall Rob will
take off. At any moment he will fly.