Which You Will Eventually Have To Eat Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Alma: you are not wounded:
You came from Guerra Mexico like a monarch butterfly
Who had forgotten what it was
Seven years ago:
You’ve been here as long as I should have been celibate,
Biting my lip and playing video games with the moon,
While you made love to your sometimes husband and brought
Two children into the world:
Michael and Heidi,
And I don’t know exactly where you live, only that it is
Very near here and with your parents: I know you already have
Papers, but not if you can vote; but that means if you
Have any sort of use for me it would be out of consideration,
Or that I have promised you my new little house near the sea
And a tandem bicycle:
I told you I was published, but that was just to make you think I
Was macho, but not macho like your husband who didn’t
Want you to finish nursing school;
And that is why you were separated for two years, but macho like
A fish basking in the shallows of your nearly ochre eyes,
Because you love scary movies, even if you said you were only
Playing
And you didn’t accept my bouquet of gladiolas tonight, the purple ones;
But you did accept the little potted flower which I don’t know the
Name for, and you had the audacity to ask me what kind of
Shade it liked when you knew the only thing I am really good
At is selling fireworks;
But you are very good medicine for me Alma, and you are truly beautiful:
You really are a vibrant mariposa, and vermillion,
Because green is your favorite color; and you are helping me to forget
The other mariposa who drive lunch trucks or who disappear into
Tennessee and Colorado;
Even if you do have two children cooing in the basins of your parents’
Carports; and even if I am not really beautiful enough for you.
At least I will always know that your favorite color is green,
And you love the two rabbits one of which you promised to name after me;
Both of which you will eventually have to eat.