August 19, 2022   •   By Brian Brodeur

Think of sweet and chocolate, Left to folly or to fate, Whom the higher gods forgot, Whom the lower gods berate; Physical and underfed Fancying on her featherbed What was never and is not.

Think of tweaked and twenty-four Fuchsias gone or gripped or gay, All hay-colored that was green. Soft aesthetic looted, lean. Crouching low, behind a screen, Pock-marked eye-light, and the sore Eaglets of old pride and prey.

Think of almost thoroughly Derelict and dim and done. Stroking swallows from the sweat. Fingering faint violet. Hugging old and Sunday sun. Kissing in her kitchenette The minuets of memory.

3. “On the Fair Green Hills of Rio”

He hit him in three places;       The other shots went wild. The soldier had hysterics       And sobbed like a little child.

The dying man said, “Finish       The job we came here for.” He committed his soul to God       And his sons to the Governor.

They ran and got the priest,       And he died in hope of Heaven — A man from Pernambuco,       The youngest of eleven.

      And all night, under the stars,

Micuçú hid in grasses       Or sat in a little tree, Listening for sounds, and staring       At the lighthouse out at sea.

And the lighthouse stared back at him,       Till finally it was dawn. He was soaked with dew, and hungry,       On the hill of Babylon.

“We have always been respected.       My shop is honest and clean. I loved him, but from a baby       Micuçú was always mean.

“We have always been respected.       His sister has a job. Both of us gave him money.       Why did he have to rob?

“I raised him to be honest,       Even here, in Babylon slum.” The customers had another,       Looking serious and glum.

But one of them said to another,       When he got outside the door, “He wasn’t much of a burglar,       He got caught six times — or more.”

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