The Birthdays Of Long Ago Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Mexico: a green counter filled with snakes a rivers
That run backwards like counter clockwise Ferris Wheels,
And arteries of breath, and veins of rich blood
And innuendo:
Starting and stopping all right there in the hills that your father
Marcelino sends most of his money back into:
Back to his first daughter, and his first and second houses;
Alma- at least that is what you told me
While you waited in the doctor’s office instead of coming to
See me;
And in provided a good excuse: I got so jealous during the
Tuesday, that the only way I could find to calm myself
Down was to kneel and cross myself before The Virgin of Gaudalupe:
Which is what I did, while afterwards I beat myself like
A drum, and practiced myself for you:
And when I got to talk to you, your voice the prism that exhibits
The rainbow, I got you to agree that you loved me;
And it was a vermillion interlude, even if it had to fail:
While the day before I stole another baseball cap that read Mexico;
It was the same as the one that I had originally bought for you,
But I left that old shell behind at the store,
And I walked out into the loneliest traffics of the day- beaten
Down again, listening to the chaos of the heavens as they fell
Across my senses, like the sparks of banshees remembering the brightness
That once resided in their kitchens; and your brownest body
Cradled into mine, like drift wood that doesn’t ever want to leave
The frothing love makings of the sea- even though they are rabid,
And beaten themselves, sliced like pieces of cage into the conquistadors
Sharp points, who have already cenotaphed themselves into
The birthdays of long ago.