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Ile de Plaisir

Let us sing of heroes inducted into a land of zombies,
vampires, crooked cops, drug dealers, military forces of occupation,
each room set up to teach another cruelty,

Ile de Plaisir with a forty year-old permit, ancient actually,
ushered through gates—red, yellow, media-soaked balloons
equipped to render interviews on the fly—

Without parents, no charge at the turnstile, young bodies
handed off to brokers or herded into camps
where wooden matches flame spontaneously. Magic

until they run away with a woman dressed
in a skirt of serpents and a necklace of skulls.
You are my children, she sings, and leads them

to the bottom of a well where they drink with the heat
of a million fires, grow fins and gills, kiss stones
until they learn language. And what will they say?