The Strangely Usual Faiths Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Coming up to another church again
Through the shallows of a Peabody’s imagination:
Like cousins counting each others’ freckles
In the shoulders of the mirror-
Far across the landscaping of an utopian misappropriated
Underneath the extraordinary pulling of
Moonrise-
Like the last knight of morning galloping out
In the strange pools and
Lakes of that day’s sunshine-
And so we were: another school yard going through
The matriculations of recess:
Another dime store astronaut counting the ticks
Of oxygen leading up to his weightless
Graveyard:
And a hallway leading to a doorway expected
To lead towards somewhere,
With faithful wolves lollygagging on either side,
Waiting for the malapropisms of
Lycanthropes to howl through the forest
We thought already tamed anyways- as the dragons
Sang for their dinner,
And the damsels stepped easily-
Already according to the spiral staircases of their
Inner cathedrals- like the backwards propositions
In the fingers of Chinese fireworks-
And the maypoles of firemen- but I suppose you
Don’t know or understand this:
So, just kiss her lips beneath the tiny flames of
Goldfish,
And rewind yourself, and go barefooted back inside
Your little house, with the Christmas tree
Waiting side by side with the television-
The two of them entirely kissing cousins to the strangely
Usual faiths that we both just happen to believe in.