Jolly Rouge Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Let me raise the Jolly Rouge to you lips,
As if to say I mean business
Like Captain Kid in the Adventure Prize,
Ready to seize you about the hips
And dance with you to feel the warmth
Of your soul peering through your eyes’ portholes—
Let the sky grumble in a thunderous deluge,
So that we can drink rum in the rain
And swim, bodies pressed like wet paper,
Like drunken fishermen waltzing in the waves,
Your eyelashes drenched like moist petals
And your eyes the nocturnal flowers
Opening to kiss blanketed moonlight—
Let then the world become around us
A zoetrope of motion and darkness,
And the shore to be our bedroom
Expanding through the sea our shadowed engagement.
Through the electricity of the storm,
Let our lips give off static charges
Into each others’ bodies,
Like Tesla, harnessing heaven’s arsenals,
Jumpstarting our cresting motions, allowing us
To feel the excitement of this single moment,
Carried by our memories’ current along through
Our fingers, our bodies’ channels pumping
With fervent belief and expectation our
Cargo of mutual needs sailing stored in our feeling,
Your lips the Jolly Rouge perched beneath the sky,
Christening my name, conquering,
Laying us down in the surf, the salty waters
Eddying around us both, interlocked sea and sky.