To Other Boys Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Pour these imperfections to my throat:
Drown and swell the song birds that she pretended to give
To my eyes:
There is nothing more imperfect than my art:
Nothing more perfect than my pain: my pain like all of the
Gathered memories souped up from forgotten ancestors
And made to swim around
A branded aquarium: and given the color of slaves:
It feels this way, coming back and forth-
Retinues that spill across the climbs, getting nose bleeds further
Up, transferring over the flowers that have died for her
And have been put away:
Here is just another hour of my disease, sluiced and lost
In the wasted affliction of my disease: as I dream of houses that
She can never believe: my, Alma, aquited of all of her states of
Mexico; she came this way like a butterfly reborn
And spread her shoulders into a new world that called
Itself America and promised her everything because she was
The toy motor in its soul; but all she did was laugh and laugh
As she did summersaults in its cage and kissed and made love
To other boys until it could do nothing else
But look away.