To Figure Out Its Colors Poem by Robert Rorabeck

The only difference between I and these fools,
These charlatans and plagiarists of daydreams, is that I love
You, Alma:
While he just wants to sell his cars and keep the chickens warm
And hallucinating,
While I go out on walks up mountains, while I wet my lips in
Streams and all of them seem to be ribbons coming undone
In the snowmelts of your hair;
And that is why I lay alone at night while you rest alone with your
Husband,
And your fingers splay through the backyards and their dying
Fruit trees where your rabbits’ young have disappeared,
Where Heidi is still innocent and loved by her parents,
And has no excuses for me, even if I bought her coloring books and
Pretended to be her uncle;
And she is your beauty rippling newly upon the world:
She is the flag and the weathervane whose lips have yet decided
To figure out its colors.