Woo Poem by Robert Rorabeck

I am quited by the bottle, but when I look into Alma’s
Eyes I sing
Of their dark brown rivers: Of how they have seemed to fit
Into a state of America that has no record of her existence;
And yet she goes on and on,
Surprisingly beautiful, and a better light for the cops:
Alma, I am so happy for you, and your body is a weathervane of
Brown fireworks:
I want to pick it up and smell its wooden battlements,
The hinges that play across it and are good for your metamorphosis;
And I am sorry if I have done you wrong,
That I am not completely beautiful for you, Alma:
I got inside your car today and it was so clean: I must have left you
Three dozen tulips that I wouldn’t allow you to give back to me;
And when I am in my graveyards, Alma,
When the bottle is empty and my lips are like over-drunken caterpillars,
I warm up to you on the grasses of your unkind yards
And make believe that I know you, and that I can sing to you in the
Ways that would make you sure of the poisonous wisdoms
I have called up for you from the small pits of the classrooms
That I came to learn in so many years ago
That my eyes became brown as well- and I road my bicycle until there
Was a storm,
And in the storm I cried your name; for it is you who I believe has taken
My missing rib:
I do not want it back, but I would like to lay beside it every night on
The springs of an old teachers bed in the house I have bought just
To woo.