Alma's Fruiteria Poem by Robert Rorabeck

You gave me a humming sound—stringed instrument
Going down on her,
Always vanishing over the rivers, and becoming a
Mystery for her knights:
The clouds clouding over the telephone poles,
The brindled neighbors making love like cats:
The fountain continuing to sing of
Immortality,
But the prettiest of song birds refusing to drink from
Her—
And now, where are you caught up,
As I dance in those echoes you never recognized,
Your car repossessed—
And your patrona stealing your flag—and nothing about
Us remembered, like the colors
They keep bringing to the disorganized patriotisms—
But we kissed
And made love day by day,
And I brought you music by these fingers—they are
Still singing
As I try to teach school, stringed instrument in
Your echoes—
Men who cannot cross from the borders of your heart—
But I remember how
We played
In the sandy lot of both of our hearts—
And I watered the petunias, getting ready to move on,
As you pretended to flirt with my cousin,
In the fruit market our dreams have left abandoned.