When we arrive, the macaws 
so grandly featured on the website 
are finding ever-higher branches. 
The frantic spasm of their wings 
transforms their scarlet, gold, and green 
to brown. The bay, where it appears below, 
resembles, like the sun, 
its photo. But the gracious parking lot 
is full of flashing lights, 
and orange police-tape adds 
one note too many to the vivid walls. 
“It’s the room above yours,” the concierge 
says helpfully (will she be 
as distraught when the drains block?). 
“Viviana,” she adds; each room has a woman’s name. 
The residents of Viviana, 
young, monied, struggling through some haze, 
stand about. Hard to see if they’re handcuffed, 
clutching themselves, or imitating ease. 
More birds flee. The tenente 
takes it upon himself 
to assure us in English, “This will be over soon.” 
We comfort him: “You’re doing your job.” 
“My job ...” he says with odd perplexity. 
“It is always over soon.” 
(At least things will be quiet upstairs, 
I think but don’t quite say.) 
A gurney emerges—slight form 
strapped in a body bag; 
is lifted down the tastefully tiled steps; 
and everything proceeds as in the North. 

Frederick Pollack

is the author of two book-length narrative poems, The Adventure (Story Line Press, 1986; reissued April 2022 by Red Hen Press) and Happiness (Story Line Press, 1998), and three collections, A Poverty of Words (Prolific Press, 2015), Landscape with Mutant (Smokestack Books, UK, 2018), and The Beautiful Losses (Better Than Starbucks Books, forthcoming September 2023).

In print, Pollack’s work has appeared in Hudson Review, Salmagundi, Poetry Salzburg Review, Manhattan Review, Skidrow Penthouse, Main Street Rag, Miramar, Chicago Quarterly Review, The Fish Anthology (Ireland), Poetry Quarterly Review, Magma (UK), Neon (UK), Orbis (UK), Armarolla, December, and elsewhere. Online, his poems have appeared in Big Bridge, Diagram, BlazeVox, Mudlark, Occupoetry, Faircloth Review, Triggerfish, Misfit, OffCourse, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Big Pond Rumours (Canada), and elsewhere.

Author’s website: https://www.frederickpollack.com

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ “Challenging the poverty of words: Interview with progressive poet Frederick Pollack” by Michael Berkowitz in People’s World (12 January 2022)