By Your Side Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Sharon,
In my trailer park gloom, you are the lightest of
Shadows:
Your soul floats over the net like a cone of badminton;
And I am sorry that you could never be a councellor,
Or something just as professional,
Or that you haven’t climbed more mountains to see your
Reflection laying across the land as if an entire
High school of angels had sprung a leak;
And I am sorry that I couldn’t have been a better and
More forthright man for you; and that I had to mess
Up my face deliberately,
And that I had to hang my flag upside down because I
Figured that I was in some kind of distress;
But I used to figure you out most weekdays when I skipped
School and got drunk and lit off bottle rockets:
And it really meant something when I finally matriculated
To your state college and saw you once or twice,
Even if it was kissing your soon to be husband in the line of
That Chinese restaurant now demolished just so they
Could widen thirteenth street:
Sharon, you’ve never looked like Jodie Foster: And you’ve
Never looked better,
And I just wish I was your bicycle, Sharon, something for you
To sit up and ride, ride, ride, over the mountains of your
Colorado countryside; and I don’t mean that in a sexual way,
Sharon,
But in a friendly way, the way that lions are supposed to lay down
With the lambs and share snow cones or something deep in
The esplanades in the state fairs of Telluride or something
Or somewhere,
Just as long as you are there, Sharon, and I am by your side.