To Cry Another Tear Poem by Robert Rorabeck

House how yellowed, and how quieted- sometimes even
The hush of airplanes- and how many
People have lived here- eighty-five years of people-
Homosexuals and sea-shells:
And I made love to Alma here forty-two times:
I made love to Alma here, but how many orgasms
Did I give her, like
Orange gorillas- I laid her down and entered her
Forty-two times,
But that is deceptive, like an electronic fire:
Each time I made love to Alma for an hour- and the
Orgasms were many- her brown body from
Mexico shivered, and felt me all over- and when
She learned to feel it right,
She was like spilled gasoline that I ignited-
For each time, four or five orgasms-
She was so afraid that I would give her children,
But the entire night, and the entire woods glowed:
She burned away newly made,
Back to her husband- always to him. Today is her
Birthday, and now it is all over-
She will never leave her family to be with me- I have
Worked and lived here just to be with her:
I have written a thousand poems of our adultery, all imperfect
And all sincere: but it could never be enough
To compete with his witchcraft that he brought back with
Him from the cauldrons of Mexico, stewing the fallen
Mariposas- and striking the map of his poisons into her
Heart- she walked back into his shrunken cathedrals
Like the map of his sphere,
Leaving me with only the echoes of the sweetest orchard-
The bees and hummingbirds carrying news of him
Over her shoulders- tattooing her sun with his name,
Leaving me only to cry another tear.