El Arco Iris Poem by Robert Rorabeck

If I go away and leave her to sell fireworks in
New Mexico,
Guys will start jumping all over her like rats leaving
A drowning ship;
And I wouldn’t even blame her, as beautiful as she is;
And I want to bed her down next to the Palm
Beach zoo,
And tell her things I cannot explain about herself to her
Every night while the same old moon waxes and wanes
With the black cats over our bedroom;
And she isn’t even mine: she only kissed my neck twice:
Today is her birthday, and I am trying to buy a house
For her:
Not the virgin of a small town in Peru: not even a good
Sized metropolis, maybe, like this place;
But maybe of everything, at least for me, and that is why
I am trying to collect myself and gather my courage and
My green canon balls, to line them out and count them
Like paper airplanes before the tremendous thunderheads,
To show her daughter and her daughter’s grandmother
Even though I am sure that they cannot hope to fathom an
Estimate of who she really is.