Elide Valarini OLIVER is a Brazilian poet and translator who writes poems in both Portuguese and English. A volume of selected poems is forthcoming with 7 Letras Press in Rio de Janeiro. She is a professor at the University of Minnesota.

BRANDING

Robbers, slaves and runaways,
Toilers in the mines, convicts condemned
Disfigured faces until Constantine
forbade the hot iron on hands
or arms. Vagabonds with large Vs, Fs
for fray makers, Rs for rouges;
From R to 'slave' on cheek or
forehead, as Cain without Cain's
wrath, wrath with wrath,
God's endorsement; cement bonding
a wall of inscriptions, an alphabet
of Ire, brother
against brother, how I wish
a random thunderbolt would crash
and crush the tower and destroy us all!

Copyright © Elide Valarini Oliver, 2001.  All Rights Reserved.
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