LITMIR.BIZ

      After the Plantation Fire

      We buried the bodies and danced — we had to.

      Beneath the sagging porch, generators roared,

      mosquitoes sated themselves on wild dogs, boats

      approaching on the river loaded with soldiers

      killed their engines. We told them the fire had nothing

      to do with the revolution. I’ve made the choice

      between brushing flies from a child’s eyes or digging

      a grave deeper. It’s easier than you’d think. So what

      if I knew who he was when he sidled close —

      hat tilted back, caipirinha in his hand — and matched

      his hips with mine? I toyed with his buttons, felt scars

      through his shirt. I didn’t tell him where our daughter

      had gone or what my husband had done. He kissed

      the blood blisters on my fingertips and never asked

      how I got them. That’s not why he’d come.

      When soldiers broke the lights and the musicians’ arms,

      I brought him to the burned plantation, hid his face beneath

      my skirt and leaned against a rubber tree — still alive

      and leaking sap. Somewhere in the new dark, a man

      in a uniform cut off another man’s tongue and ordered him

      to sing. Wind pushed the flames closer to heaven.