The Very Same Hearts Poem by Robert Rorabeck

You can save yourself again
On smoky green sailing boats just impressions
In the way stations of the
Fiery forest,
Because you already have a father and a son,
A mother and a daughter,
And you don’t want anymore, Alma;
And yet there are so many new ventures and markets
To explore,
And I can watch you basketing tomatoes all day long,
With your pretty, leonine face down cast
Trying not to meet the hard gaze of my father, your
Patron:
You are in your own little world as far away from me
As the equator is from the Bible belt;
And maybe I will never mend, but keeping
Pulling my wagons into doom,
Maybe you will become the fire: maybe it will shape both
Of your wings,
As you strike out, immortal and jubilant;
But if we had children,
Can’t you even suspect how strong they would be, tied
Fast from either ends of the world,
Picking up the best virtues of hoodlums and green parklands:
They could meet the narrow gauge of alligators:
They could sing in their own time:
They would know both of our breasts and languages,
Alma,
And they would be as surreal as to carry the very same hearts that
I now carry for you.