The Name For Alma Poem by Robert Rorabeck

The quieted ness of all of our bodies, as if in a muted fraternity,
Or a very saturnine baseball trip on airplanes,
Astonishes me:
The way she pushes herself all day, body flipping like rides at the fair,
Body turning around and all around
With her favorite cardinals: That I would wish for nothing more than
To be more beautiful for her;
That I could stop clowning around and straighten up and show off
In the bright sunlit ballrooms of the day,
That I would know my numbers and arithmetic and count on all of
My fingers and toes:
I told her today that she was my patrona, that I had mean feelings about her
And that I was just starting to get up while the hummingbirds were
Mumbling:
Why, of course they were, and this is their song:
Something completely pedestrian and repeated while the chariots held
Races and the bodies lisped in their cornices; and I thought it must be
The altruisms of a very beautiful race, and I was just as sure that I had not
Yet died, for the gravity was as of yet pinging me around like a ball in
A school yard, and the name for Alma was as of yet my soul.