Let’s meet somewhere

where the horrible rains in

São Paulo remind us

of a politician’s speech.

 

Or let’s watch a

cloud move slowly into your

bed near Petrópolis,

hear waterfalls and lichen.

 

Dog-eared are

places we may forget like

brisk seasons wandering

through Brazil, lost tourists.

 

Wherever we

go, you’ll excel at naming

vapor, moss, moth, those

forgettable at night’s fall.

 

How lovely the

way you speak the leaves, quiet

then rests among their limbs,

we hear your silver, your ferns

 

even after

the lines speak and the wind nears,

a heavy gathering

of foliage, just rustling.

 

How you prized

each brown scale, each flowery

bladder, but mostly those shallow

eyes that failed to see you,

 

sought something else

toward the horizon of

your Key West, the thirties—

unapologetic paint

 

like sunset on

clapboard among fierce mangroves,

lost lights of fishing boats,

the tropics of restlessness.

 

You sent some leaves

in letters, live souvenirs

like barnacled turtle

shells, abandoned by the dead.