Their Young Corals Poem by Robert Rorabeck

My poetry is as alive as the things you say to me;
It is as alive as the newly green car horns,
And the fishtail palms that smoke straight up from my newly
Forgotten
Window;
Alma, and I put your name into every new poem I write,
Because otherwise you won’t find yourself- Alma,
My liquor bottle is almost empty, and I swear that the fires have
Already been fought,
And the night and its windows, and all the illusions of misfits
And comets
Have already been taught into the classrooms of gringos,
While they already have their bedrooms and bicycles
And just right now I have my old teacher’s new
Car, and I wonder why none of his other younger students have
Enough love for him,
And I wonder, Alma, if I am the only true poet that has ever
Come and been to him:
While the elephants nod and the poets proceed,
But it takes so long to make it through all of the illusions of
The Kalahari, while you yet remain so beautiful and so young,
And the bodies move right to you singing with their young,
Like the yellow buses like the mariposas as if out upon some milieu
Gallivanting,
And whatever else they are doing I wish I could remember how
The other muses burned for you,
Alma, but I mostly wish to see you tomorrow, while the sea
And all of its architects continue foaming awesome phosphorous
And sulfurous out in the open, barbequing so green with
Their ever-loving Pentecost, as if they had never known you, or had
Quiteforgotten how that awesome providence had brought you
To me, like something precious and yet forgotten sent up
From the sea- Alma, Alma- A beautiful chest of
Conquistadors and their video games like a gift basket sent up from
Their corals as a sweet and as everlasting as a young gift for me.