For I Swear For Both Of Us Poem by Robert Rorabeck

The day turns out like my body sitting on a love seat
In the armpit of Southern Boulevard and Old Dixie: I am now living
In historical West Palm Beach, in a house I paid for
With cash,
And Alma has been to my house twice, like the cat who comes through
The whole in the fence:
Alma, if you could have seen her eyes as she was cleaning herself underneath
The blue umbrella this morning: I saw her after I had showered and
Was trying not to look at myself to endearingly:
She cleaned herself, as pregnant as the snow as it was disappearing,
And you must have been at the market, Already:
Alma: Today, you called Charlie Robert, which is my name, Alma:
And last Saturday or Sunday you said you had something you wanted
To tell me,
After I swore to you that I loved you, but you didn’t tell me what it
Was;
And today, Alma, you told me that I knew nothing, only that I had upset
You- While I threatened to get drunk and to go straight to your house
And sleep on a nearby roof, like I had done the other night,
But you compromised and promised instead that you would come and
See me tomorrow:
Alma: what are we going to do tomorrow, while the cats sleep,
And the fairs migrate like butterflies across our America,
And you study to become a citizen, of this country that has become our
Soul,
For I swear for both of us that it is another great land.