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

It’s the small package
I’ve carried with me
these dozens of years

I never imagined
him buried thus,
to the din of trolleys

Over rooftops, over time
the rain washes. And walls
that had watched men die

Carlos Drummond de Andrade’s poem “Morning Street” appeared in our Fall 1986 issue. He is considered by some to be the greatest Portuguese-language poet of all time.The splashing rain
unearthed my father.
I never imagined
him buried thus,
to the din of…