I met my first rat in São Paulo, Brazil,
in the winter when the heat
doesn't engorge your somnia all night long
waiting for your turn to feel the oscillating
fan for a few seconds. No, winter is the time
when you soak a small bowl
of flour in alcohol to burn all night,

for central heating in Brazil is more ridiculous
than Goncalvo Braga da Silva's jokes that
gently skirt humor without bedding it down.
But the rat. He was hiding in the kitchen,
active late at night as was his custom,
and the guys and I tried to flush him out
from behind the butane tank we used for cooking

with broom handles and other weapons
that made us feel safe from the lone rodent.
He made a desperate bid for freedom past
our tree-trunk legs (we jumped, I admit, fearful of
bubonic plague and sharp teeth made for gnawing)
and climbed the stairs with hops, flips, and jumps,
as was his custom. When he was finally imprisoned

underneath an overturned wastebasket, we resisted
the urge to poke him with chopsticks left over from Chinese
takeout and slid a book underneath the wastebasket
and carried him to the outdoor sink where we washed
our clothes and poured his death to the very top, one
small air bubble trapped inside. Bubble removed with
a basket perforation, for he sensed that bubble was the

last breath he'd breathe, and as we buried him under the
pimenta plant, I thought, "That I could cling to life so strongly."