That Only Has Eyes For You Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Wine on the couch- wine like blood tears
While the lights are popping on and off like stoplights of
Christmas trees,
One for each ghost coming on in this house of eighty five years:
You can hear them, Alma,
They are all burying their frightened heads into the apple orchard
Of your soul,
Alma:
I didn’t see you while I was in Spain with my aunt halfway
Through high school, where I got this old fashioned tattoo:
Then you were already joining the gangs,
And getting Nelson’s initial tattooed to the web of your hand:
Today I watched you walking through the beautiful yard,
And multiplying its beauty in your tight blue jeans:
Smiling your auburn beams,
And making all of our customers like tourists hiking toward you
Alma;
And it is almost midnight, and I haven’t changed:
I will be drinking an entire bottle toasting you,
While your throat lies next to his throat like two quieted song birds
In a bed,
While the rabbits hutch warmly in their cage, purring softly-
The newborn little, hairless and shivering:
Like me, an entire way born family that only has eyes for you.