Lieutenant Frank Detweiler
If I spoke with a visiting colleague from São Paulo,
if such an officer came to visit,
I might experience unease
as, dissing our beer but drinking it,
he sprawled in the big corner booth
at Rudy’s, delighting the guys with
his accent and his stories after shift. They breed,
he might say, like rabbits, are irresponsible
(if not, why would they breed?) and still
mostly Communist; the kids roam
like animals, clots of sewer-dirt, stupidly
smiling, sniffing glue from bags;
they steal like they breathe. And
because we would want to invite him
(a visiting colleague) out to the
little suburb where we live
to thrill our wives with his hand-kissing, he’d have to
tell his other stories here, at
Rudy’s. The fast blue vans, Toyota
and Subaru; tips about where clots of kids
sleep; pull up, toss
them in, bang bang on garbage dumps,
fitting: hotels and merchants pay for night-work.
To speak with such an officer
wouldn’t bear thinking about
the next day, approaching
the precinct along streets of suspects who
as soon as they’re off the tit
steal cars, club up, shoot and stab.
First chance they get, they shoot or get shot –
as if they were in fact very wise
and knew the life of the poor is a single evening.
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