Their Mothers' Jewelry Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Bodies doing pushups know tricks
And high carols:
Alma wants a new bust for Christmas, but I
Tell her she looks beautiful:
She also wants a new bicycle, and I think
I can give her that,
To give her an incentive to come over to my yellow
House
As old as most grandmothers more than once
A week, to tiptoe past the mausoleums
And the statuaries that smell like the bones of
Her neck,
Because her man is leaving again, going to California
Looking for the fleece;
And I get down on my knees and beg that he gets picked
Up by harpies, or immigration:
And I have the tattoo of the letter N on the web
Of Alma’s hand,
Because Alma is a good girl, and she doesn’t believe in
Witchcraft, even though her aunt Meirna is certain that she
Is under its spell:
But either way I can remain Alma’s friend, under the fox-
Tailed palms,
As under the fuselages of nocturnal airplanes who look
As they are taking off as if they are wearing their mothers’ jewelry.