Without Asking Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Days of zoetrope addiction,
Little red riding hoods with their virgin apples,
So sweet and deceptive underneath
The banners of heaven,
The leggy bouquets for the reintroduced wolves;
And it rained all day long, but we still sold the most of
It,
And I sang about how I was wrong,
And still I got the most of it: Two muses mouth-F$cking
In the dark on the swings in the park,
The moon on a rise through the pinnacles of the skies:
Two moons, one white and one blue,
Semiprecious but as patriotic as the stars:
Swans before the moons,
Swans who could steal your homes, who mouthed off
As teenagers in the lunch room,
Who couldn’t care less for Shakespeare:
Swans named Sharon, there they are: Two girls named Sharon,
Leaping,
Drinking the red belches of fairytales:
Their eyes the pomegranates and geodes of the places
Where I’ve sold fireworks:
How many times have I come across the homes of the
Names of these girls,
Going scarred to my sister’s wedding and graduation,
Waking up again and hiking toward a funeral
Where the greatest of beliefs can only be found atop the arisen
Cleavage of mountains:
Sharon, I saw your angels there while the girl I was with had
Parked her car and started making love,
Never caring for the rain, the kittens all strung out through the
Wet, tremulous hibiscus:
Sharon, you are sweet on the brain, and you lamp the arcades
Of your quiet streets, as the snow ploughs through the
Amber globes of the first scientific feats,
You are like the thing I was looking for above the misfits
Of tenebrous concrete;
And it is because of you I lost who I was all those years ago,
And it is for that very reason that tonight I am beautiful,
And you are like the honey-water spilled from the
Gut of the average god,
I put my mouth too like a vampiric-mutt tonight,
Sharon,
And try and suckle upon your infinity of wounds,
Without asking or even hesitating.