Even While She Looks Away Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Ignited by a night and all of its candles:
So many candles that it must be on holiday:
It must be like the tourists
Preparing for a parade- while the fort casts its long
Shoulders again up against the sea:
The stone rising tidily, but conceding
To the water and her breathing:
And girls I do not know, coming to me, but looking away:
Surely afire as they make their wishes up into
Other heavens,
Swelled by the virtues of those bulbous decorations,
Hair curling around alluringly- until they are finally
Called up,
And the world of straight arrow carriages bemoans their
Newfound chastity- the orange groves
Try to accentuate them with an often claret bouquet:
And the sun; what does he do, but jump through the day,
Freckling their shoulders,
As they go out baptizing their sorority- maybe even
Metamorphosing through the uncalled for weather:
Staggering the tourists and the unwise children on their
Shoulders,
As they try to make out what it is, straining their necks through
The airy clouds, even while she looks away.