Poems from «Persianas, pedramol e outros nervios»

Translated by Minia Bongiorno


There is no more butane, love.
We’ll have to shower extinguished,
drowned in the body of waters that spring from us.
You need detergent.
I need a bodywash with roses and camellias.
When it’s all over, love, we’ll celebrate
our cosmetic hygiene.
While it lasts.


There are terrible moments when all
is incandescent magma, spilled milk,
and you are an erupting volcano, love.
You project yourself in a boiling pot
and you spatter me with those fully cooked nerves
that rise with the heat of the stove.
There are horrible moments when I
am an angered dog, a maddened maggot,
mprisoned in you with pickled eyes, love.
I rant, I rave, I leap, I scream, I gnash,
and once again I transform the kitchen
into that condensed inferno that is our fate.