08
Eagle and the Chick

In that pitched, drunken night,
surrounded by sodden men with eyes of riot moon,
Nando was crushed against the steel barricade.
Squinting up, seeing black, red-and-white, red-and-white, and black,
and then: the cannon-legs of his bedroom posters
as Kiko kicked down the fence:
come up here kid,
see what it means.

Nando, perched on his shoulder, inspired.
We are the mattress makers,
the toiling sons of real Madrilenians:
see us kid?! Breathe with us!
We celebrate here with Neptune,
the God of tears,
for He alone knows how much we must hope
to make real this glory we dream.