Christ
and if not, maybe my yeti could do it
when he’s not downtown working
security at the store or teaching the parrots
how to say brotherhood in grunt
and how to comb out the tangles and mud
from his hair, whose sweat reminds me
of that bearded collector of beasts
with the ark who would have no doubt
understood how I feel, that prophet
of change under whose spell I want to confess
that I’m a Christian of the Old Testament,
that my grandfather hung all his goats
upside down, their throats over a bucket,
and slapped their chests like that other Nature Boy
who strutted around the ring
like a peacock with his feathered hair
that stayed immaculate
even on the nights he lost to our hero
Wahoo McDaniel who never played the heel,
he who hailed from the lost tribes
of Oklahoma, who made us want to be chiefs
so much we wore pigeon feathers
and circled each other inside a green square
of water hose until someone finally rang the bell
that was never there and we sprang
toward each other like animals in love or at war.
SAUDADES
When that word, one part swine,
one part evasion, first wobbled into my life
I was eating pastrami and hiding in my office
from students and I know Andrade was in the air,
as was the samba, and how it’s almost impossible
to translate either one, nor should you
unless you’ve been a disciple of the rough grief
that lovingly wraps you in its wings, which is warmer
than one would expect, so much so that it’s easy
to forget for a moment something trivial like pigs
aren’t supposed to fly or that if you say saudades
with enough pain and heart the pigs of your past will come
trotting out of the dark, doing their little sideways dance
around you, shaking their hips to the drum
in your chest until you forget what a frown is
or why we need them and oh they will remind you
how delicious Carnival is, and how glorious
it is to make the past present, and how
easily one can sleep dressed in feathers.
NUDIST COLONY
Wind-whipped, ear-clapped
by the rocky thunder of the coast,
they cross the wet grass
in burnished loafers, sandals
twined on the grounds
to drink and merrymaking.
Inland, they face the empty
hour between lunch
and dinner in a frail
building with a barking
door and incandescent
lighting that wraps the matte
surface of their trunks
in an amber glow. Sheets
of paper shuffle, chalk
boxes are laid out,
oils are stirred, sharpened
pencils line up in formation,
hips swivel and settle
on wooden stools
legged in metal. She
enters and her shoes click
across the white tile
as she assumes the center
of the room in a pencil skirt
and matching jacket, taupe
blouse and run stocking.
Her husband sets a flock
of gooseflesh up his neck
and starts to chalk her legs
from memory: his first
black dash and swipe
might be an eel
beached on blanched rock
but for the second
slash against the page
that frames the long thigh
and the knot of the knee.
She shifts her weight
from one foot to the next,
scarlet-heeled, toe tips
white with pressure.
Soft rock in hand,
he drags it slow
on a fresh wall of white
and applies the pressure
necessary
