This Saturday Poem by Robert Rorabeck

I can hear the traffic; it appears to be making love,
Or it stops for a little while and holds a yard sale;
And I have seen coral snakes curling in the wishing wells
And wash basins of those wheels,
That little opulent way out clenched between their teeth;
Then wouldn’t ballrooms be just as big and wide open as graveyards,
Wouldn’t they sing:
It would be like going to school again; it would be like going home
To a house that was usually empty, only to find it suddenly filled with
All the girls you once thought you loved,
And so many beds for them:
By these means, the night speaks, the liquor flows like soft
Cathedrals for honeymoons: And I am not Catholic, but I wouldn’t
Mind to be,
Because I will pray to the virginsita this night tonight;
And I will pray to her for every night, Alma, because you are still
Reading my poems,
And you weren’t particularly frightened when I told you that
I knew where you lived, and that I’d been by once or twice,
And whistled for you the way the wind likes to whistle
For little innocent children, and little women standing in the shadows
Against the lights, forever wondering when their men were
Coming home, their wishes skipping across the waves;
And when you cried for Flaco to come save you when I was going to pick
You up and carry you home with me, but you agreed to meet me
In the new shadows of the house I bought for you
After work this Saturday.