Brasilia

You returned

In your steel helm. Helpless

We were dragged into court, your arena,

Gagged in the hush.

Titterings of horror

And the bead of sweat in the spine’s furrow.

You delivered

The three sentences. Not a whisper

In the hush.

Your great love had spoken.

Only the most horrible crime

Could have brought down

The blade of lightning

That descended then. Dazzled,

All coughed in the ozone.

Even the dogs were stunned. And the same flash

Snatched you up into Heaven.

Some Colosseum flunkeys

Carry out your father’s body.

Another carries his head. Your mother

Stands, and to huge amazement

Staggers out, carrying her own head.

Other flunkeys carry me and mine.

Every day since, throughout your Empire,

Like the motherly wraith who nightly

Wailed through the streets of Tenochtitlán

Just before Cortés ended it –

Your effigies cry out on their plinths,

Dry-eyed. Your portraits, tearlessly,

Weep in the books.