The Despondency Of The Roses Of Her Name Poem by Robert Rorabeck

The trees are tremendous above the busses:
Even the bullies shrink, and their houses:
You know, these things are always created in the hues of
Your favorite colors,
Alma; even if I am the most insignificant of artists:
Even if I have to sit and watch shoeless while my great uncles
Caracole and wink their passed behind the
Motorboats in the cold trespasses of
Lake Michigan:
Don’t you know that I ran away before you, even before I
Knew you,
And never had tasted your soul like lollypop hallucinations
Through your deep brown transoms:
Even before I knew the less than perfect words to describe you,
I always had the itch to buy you flowers, and orange
Roses,
Of the very same sort that will be arriving at your house on
Tuesday, Alma:
Won’t then my love be knocking,
And I held your tremendously small hand today before breakfast
And we made love for an hour and a half, which was
Hardly enough to time to fill the body of your wishing well with
My wishes, tossed from the roof
Of the flea market’s overpass; but even so I suppose that I will
Love you forever, while the weathers happen like
Teardrops for one more mermaid,
And your mother enters this country again through her dreams,
And through the despondency of the roses of her name.