This Is How It Is Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Is this where you will choose
To take me home and make love to me?
On this spot of sidewalk so many
Lovers have used to walk to class
Their arms linked like an archway
For sunlight to cross and fidget
Sylphlike spirits digging with dollhouse
Shovels through shampooed curls,
Their hearts automatic Siamese twins,
The language of love spoken through fingertips,
Naïve rivers conjoined and inseparable
For a year or two
Until the dry seasons in the backcountry
Of famished mountains when their
Sophomoric adoration vanishes to less
Than a trickle
And they disband—

But not us. We will be graduates
In love….

Can you see where it is? Just walk
Outside the bar and go down University
To the Catholic Church where I had
The Eucharist once for a class assignment—
We can go in together and they still won’t
Know. Jesus will know and he will be proud
Of us as we take the parts of him his Priest
Gives us to eat, and with the Holy Spirit
Snacked on walk to your home and make
Love with him inside us, so that little crumbs
Of his blessings are passed between our lips—

You’ve seen this I’m sure, even if you forget
The glow from the street lamp which comes down
Upon your blouse, like blue waters on white filigree,
The light your eyes travel along
To finally remember me across the drunken street
Where the old red-bricked buildings gather
Like ancient professors about the monolithic
Football stadium of an emperor.

Now you have seen me come back to
You and you have realized this is what was
Coming to you all the time you’ve been here,
Serving drinks and waiting,
Not even noticing how pretty
You look for the boys who’ve just come back from war,
And only have two days shore leave. How they
Fight over you to occupy your time. And you’ve
Played the games to make things go faster,

But soon I will be there and on the sidewalk
At the spot I’ve told you about, so when you come
Toward me before we kiss you will
Know for sure all that I have told you and
Remember that this is how it is….