Gladly Knowing That Is What She Knows To Do Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Enraptured coelacanth of nothing;
What I am afraid of, the aphoristic nothing,
Shark’s breath, wolf’s bane:
I looked into your eyes once, Sharon,
And how I felt I will never feel the same;
The hallways of high school like corridors into the
Afterlife,
They could never sell, lined with pine coffins
And gun fighters- star-pilots:
Sharon! Sharon!
I cannot look at myself in the mirror, but I am
Even now swimming lucidly in the shallows and I have
No fear of death;
Your daughter is your afterlife- Sharon, but why did
You have to do this to me- all of these dying epitaphs,
Sharon. Do you think I am beautiful now,
When I can hardly do this, when I am going to live
Forever Sharon,
You and your lucky sister plucked out of the denouement
Sorority:
You two will live forever with me, but you don’t have to
Thank me.
I doubt that you hardly want to, but I will gladly pay for
All of those amusements,
And will keep them strung out until they think they will
Have to move away- Then I will slaughter them for
Your child, Sharon,
And for the rogue for Erin to paint her lips while we smile
At her
Gladly knowing that is what she knows to do.