when i was youngerand heard the words
south america
i always thought
of flowers
i had a hair trigger
imagination
south america meant
a blur of bright colours
an avalanche of flowers
i know this woman
who recently spent a year
living in south america
she writes poems
they are beautiful poems
but there are no flowers
and i am always disappointed
it is the craze now
for magazines
to carry pictures
of south american corpses
death squad victims
gardens of the dead
these have become
the flowers i once dreamed
and they are still colours
they have become one
Copyright© michael dennis/Pulp Press Book Publishers