tom taylor

brazil boys

all night the cars moved in and out of view
strange blue-eyed children scurried in pairs
under the hand of the evil doctor on his rounds
removing his hand from under a chin, ‘kill him’

too real to be true yet the scorn spilled through him
the arrogance and the tally mounted on the wall chart
behind him, a ladder on wheels to get around this
grisly statistical monument of control and fantasy

emanated through the years like a doubt or a plenty
on the ages of man here on this ball of twine ours
to mark our passages through the folly and pain we
inflict in the name of whatever suits us into madness