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France 3, Brazil 0

Hitler sits in a bar in Rio,
watching the World Cup final.
He is a sunken man
drinking all the time, he
pisses out arsenic and beats Eva.
He cringes when he sees passion
on the faces of the French players, shouting the Marseillaise.
The colored faces mock him as
the announcer rattles off Portuguese that
     he can hardly understand.

After Zindane knocks in his second goal,
the Fuehrer turns away. The French
leave their houses, apartments, ghettos,
     and dance to no music;
Paris is a sea of black, white and tan, blue and red.

In the 16th arrondissement someone drapes the tricolor
over a plaque for the dead in the Second World War. Even
     the Arc de Triumph
seems to smile, letting go of its heavy sadness.

Only one woman hates the new idea of France,
of being French, hates football and football players, drives
     her new car into
a group of black boys. But she is the leader of absolutely nothing.

In Rio, Hitler sheds a tear, which rolls down
a sallow cheek into his glass of Dutch beer.
Nobody notices; they are dancing down the
     Avenue de Clichy, and do not care at all.

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