I am quited by the bottle, but when I look into Alma’s <br />Eyes I sing <br />Of their dark brown rivers: Of how they have seemed to fit <br />Into a state of America that has no record of her existence; <br />And yet she goes on and on, <br />Surprisingly beautiful, and a better light for the cops: <br />Alma, I am so happy for you, and your body is a weathervane of <br />Brown fireworks: <br />I want to pick it up and smell its wooden battlements, <br />The hinges that play across it and are good for your metamorphosis; <br />And I am sorry if I have done you wrong, <br />That I am not completely beautiful for you, Alma: <br />I got inside your car today and it was so clean: I must have left you <br />Three dozen tulips that I wouldn’t allow you to give back to me; <br />And when I am in my graveyards, Alma, <br />When the bottle is empty and my lips are like over-drunken caterpillars, <br />I warm up to you on the grasses of your unkind yards <br />And make believe that I know you, and that I can sing to you in the <br />Ways that would make you sure of the poisonous wisdoms <br />I have called up for you from the small pits of the classrooms <br />That I came to learn in so many years ago <br />That my eyes became brown as well- and I road my bicycle until there <br />Was a storm, <br />And in the storm I cried your name; for it is you who I believe has taken <br />My missing rib: <br />I do not want it back, but I would like to lay beside it every night on <br />The springs of an old teachers bed in the house I have bought just <br />To woo.<br /><br />Robert Rorabeck<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/woo-4/
