Alma's Favorite Color Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Alma makes love next to her rabbits:
It rains and the canals engorges: cats dance like the pages of
A zoetrope,
But she never thinks of going outside to see all of this:
Alma will never be a suburban housewife;
Alma is a Mexican housewife who I just gave a bag full of
Jalapeno peppers to tonight:
Alma is little enough to fit into a sack, and Alma is pretty with
Satin red hair filled with shadows;
And Alma has curves that she shares with a window shopping world
Full of gringos: but she doesn’t love a single one of their
Pasty faces:
She only loves her husband, and if not him other men from Guerra,
Mexico;
And that is why I must convince Alma that I am the tallest Mexican
She has ever seen;
So that I can sing to her tomorrow and give her flowers, and make
Her accept these privileges as if we were stuck together up in the
Andes looking at the Plaedes far beneath both of our homes;
And then striking together like matches in a green bedroom,
Alma and I, as if we were on an Arthurian journey,
Looking for the immortal blueprints in an important cup;
Except that Alma doesn’t even know who our king is,
And she never looks outside when it rains,
But watches her two children who I have never seen;
And Alma’s favorite color is green.