For this bread to eat, for this floor to sleep on A certificate for birth, and permission to smile For letting me breathe, for me to exist God bless you For the pleasure of weeping, and the "we're there" For the joke at the bar, and for football to cheer A crime to comment on, and a samba to distract God bless you On this beach, this skirt for the women here The love clumsy quickly, shave and go By Sunday it was beautiful, novel, comic and Mass God bless you The free 'cachaca' that we have to swallow For the smoke which, unfortunately, we have to cough on For scaffolding, pendants, we have to fall God bless you For another day, agonizing, to endure and attend For the grinding teeth, for the city to zip around And the demented scream that helps us escape God bless you For the mourning woman who praises us and spits And for the maggot-flies that cover us and kiss us And for the final peace that will finally redeem us God bless you