Your Stranger Wedding Day Poem by Robert Rorabeck

I came back from California
And fell asleep at the movies:
And the town was empty from
All the girls I knew drifting away:
And the lake was empty of its woman
Out beside the swings and
Graffiti,
And crepuscule came and cut the throats
Of all the needy toolboxes and
Mailboxes and things with chests
To be filled
Like hollow trees;
And then I could see the sword in the lake,
All aglow,
But there was no swan to dive down and
Pick it up,
No teacher with the words to make it grow:
And it was as if I was without a car,
Or especially a bicycle,
And all the lions couldn’t roar:
They couldn’t even purr,
And the rain fell without sweet sound,
Without the noise of the heavens raining down,
And you were up in college,
Putting your hands on strange new clay,
Making love to strange boys I wonder if you
Happen to recall on your stranger wedding day.