Buzzard

Tiny grains of white
Dust my candied clementines
Bursts of amber sweetness
Like volcanoes on my tongue

I think of glaring lights
Over Brazilian boys in lines
Whose nights are short and sleepless
Marked by tightness of the lung

I crumple up the glossy bag
And savor the fading taste
Of those tart explosions
That send smiles to my brain

The boys’ sharp shoulders sag
Watching chemical waste
And its cruel corrosion
In the name of sugarcane

The bag goes in a blue bin
I never think of it again
As it’s crushed to pieces
And shipped to far off places

It finds itself within
A pile of plastic pens
A pile that increases
Spilling into the boys’ spaces

I ask myself if pleasure
Always comes at such a price
Must someone always give
So I can take away?

The boys sift in search of treasure
Through that stinking vat of vice
Another day they live
To make me things with which to play