My fingernails are dirty,
And I am sweating pot bellied on my love seat:
I cannot hear the song birds,
Alma, but my grandfather wrote my mother a poem for
Mother’s day,
So that must mean I am doing some good,
While all the night swings perfumed on its censers, and all the waves
Come like tender little girls who don’t yet know who they are,
Except that they are the first kindling flames soon to burn
Out upon the muted tattoos of the shore,
And all the sting rays- and all of the water moccasins,
That, Alma, I’m sure don’t know what for- but for your love,
Alma- but for your love:
I told you today that I don’t know who Sharon is:
Alma:
Your body swings out in the open with pleasure, like a letter opened
Obscenely, but for my leisure, while all of the pretty poets dance
So nakedly out in the heather:
Oh, they dance so nakedly, Alma, all breathing like wildflowers
Galvanized up in the hot-saucer slopes of
Colorado,
But all for your pleasure.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem