Shadow Of Our Fires Poem by Robert Rorabeck

She went out with her family to see the lions:
There they were yawning in
An apiary- the grass beneath them was mowed,
And they didn’t mind the school buses
We turned around in
The auburn sun- When my mothers saw her,
They said that she had the bangs of a lion,
And they tried to sing to her
To make her their daughter,
But she wouldn’t come- so busy was she
Underneath the starless roof where all of the animals
Played: they fawned in their gargantuan
Yard and never once wondered why or
How they were made,
Which made them so beautiful-
Panting without shade- that we came to them
Every Sunday without a church- and they yawned
And cleaned themselves- and in their eyes
Not even a shadow of our fires.