Both Of My Hungriest Arms Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Yes,
This night whispers up and down into
The shadows of love makers,
And even the lights of the windows are dimmed
Behind the palms;
And it is really beautiful, and I don’t
Even feel qualified enough to tell you how beautiful
It is,
But it is as beautiful as the one armed woman with
The pretty face shopping for palm trees I knew
Nothing about:
I was just standing there in a slice of sun out
Amongst the Dominican pottery thinking
Of Sharon,
Because she made pottery in
High school,
And she even tried to trap me in art class,
While even then I was all about hiding one side
Of my face or the
Other from beautiful Sharon,
Thinking that I could run so far away from there,
And the woman pulled around
And smiled so brightly and so demure,
Her eyes wanting me to keep looking into her eyes
As she motioned outside the van
That she was just showing her husband what beautiful changes
We’d already made to the place,
And when my eyes fell down to her missing limb,
As I guess she knew that they must,
I wondered if her soul diminished a little, and ran away
Too:
For her hand was clearly missing, though it made
Her no less beautiful;
And I wonder if that is how you might think of me,
Considering all that I have which has gone missing like
Bits of knights cut from the round table to go
Searching for your sweetly everlasting liquors in high basins and
Aeries,
Far from the trains and the systems, like the words from my stolen
Liquors I send out every night using the
Advantage of both of my hungriest arms.