Alma's Song Poem by Robert Rorabeck

You showed me your children today,
Alma, and found out from Pedro that the N
Tattooed in the web of your left or right hand stands for
North America, or the man you love:
I can’t remember his name right now: I keep imagining
You out in this one front yard in all of this
Florida,
Standing like a pinup beside an open throated mailbox;
Oh, Alma,
Aren’t you such a bird: Oh, Alma- that you would love me for
More than a month or two before going back to the man whose
Initials you have tattooed right there on your hand;
And I have been so diligently faithful keeping this up for you,
Wanting to pet the brownness of your flesh,
Wanting to wake up with you in the butterfly house where the sky
Is always smoking upwards like tresses with the young and virginal
Angels swinging their legs on the top wrung:
Oh, Alma, I have another song for you that no one else has
Ever sung.