Brasil: A Traveler’s Guide.

I.
This time tomorrow,
I will be a woman of Brasil.

II.

I am
going
to
visit
Bahia.

III.

My fingers graze
the cold plastic walls.

A motionless aeroplane
goes shrieking over the bay of Mexico
and down to America Sol.

The captain has turned on the FASTEN SEATBELT sign.

"I can see the world and it ain't so big at all".


Brazil will be waking now.

We fall desperately into Sao Paulo.

VII.

who I am doesn’t matter
as you see me
fighting to survive.

fighting to be esteemed and honored
(so that my past vanishes)
you will dismiss me as nothing terrific

Fair enough
but there is one thing about me:
I can take you to Salvador.


VIII.

Now although I hate to travel
I go to a lot of places

and have noted

a certain recurrent phenomena.
A journey, for example,
begins with a voice

calling out your name
behind you.
This seems a convenient arrangement.

How else would you know it’s time to go?
On the other hand,
who is it?

And what do they want?
So too a friendship
begins before the first meeting,

love
before the first conquest.

maybe
the people of Salvador
can explain
some of this to me.