I

It had to be some poet from Brazil
not one of the greatest, more likely to make a fool of himself
shuffling around somewhere in your vicinity or aspiring to dwell there
as in the domain, poetic and essential, of lucid dreams

it had to be this obstinate little minstrel
of elementary rhythms, fresh from a small town in the interior
where they don’t insist on your wearing a tie but everyone’s extremely polished
and oppression is abhorred even though heroism’s suffused with a certain irony