Brand New Home Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Bums work and engines burn,
And I am traveling through time: Today Alma asked
Me what color my hair was growing up,
And I want to take her on Monday to my backyard where the lions
Still roar and
The alligators promenade,
Where the comets keep their sororities of dimwit light bulbs over
The green fields and the sugarcane:
I want to burn for Alma:
I want to really light up for her, and turn her around and show her every
Last aspect of her reasons,
Like an alligator newly aware of her blindsides,
And I want to call up stewardesses from the dank alleys of canals
For Alma,
And I want to lay Alma down in the sweet young aloe beside my
Mother’s carport,
And I want to sing until my throat is a pitchfork glowing in
A fire of burning monsters for
Alma:
I want to start a ride in her name that I can never get off, like the river walk
At the Alamo in
San Antonio Texas, where her ancestors defeated mine,
And called them gringos and tramped on their dead and bent trumpets,
Because Alma is a butterfly driving to and from her house
Into and out of her two worlds of work and home,
As I imagine this same situation is repeated in so many routines across the
Country,
The casual strangers of the workplace hitting and discombobulating
Home,
Only, Alma, you don’t know me, or how bright my tomb is,
I can be your anumbis- I can be your gentle throb: I can take you to the
Movies when you are not home,
And I can do this all night, and give you the same voice as the rainstorms
Of wildcats that will pick you up and displace you into
A brand new home.