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When the conquistadores came
)Horace, Valapula, Larkes, Honta(
their glinting six legs and tongues
preached the language of owls and cockatoos
)mama sat in, vexing wool with
spiny thrusts — (Florence in her arbor of curls
knocked bottles from wicker tables
and was not last in that golden light —
a skein of memory slept beneath the swaying
light still palm and a blueness agoraplenum
to the dead fat tow.
The handsome man and ragalia of women
read prose fricatives oporto from the other table
and their legions of captive souls enscribed
cruel earth's tang, bitter watercourse.
There terraced on dust and green
the daughter sadly sulked for home and our
two tenacious marbles unhappily found a drain —
farewell or 'that's the end of that' — fare thee
well our glassen balls in the cool cool. I think
that she came around and I looked
on their faces in a bed, sculpted love &
filial stars.



the poet reading to his children