I looked in Virginia’s eyes
I felt all those birds
They were pecking at her chest
I felt her breath so sweet
Her fear was almost gone.

Sometimes there’s no fear left in me either.
I looked at her eyes once more
We kissed as she sunk weightless
Luminous.
Homebound.

the grass is greener on our side.

Even then I have nothing against life.
I know well the grass blades you mention,
the furniture you have placed under the sun.

But suicides have a special language.
Like carpenters they want to know which tools.
They never ask why build.

Twice I have so simply declared myself,
have possessed the enemy, eaten the enemy,
have taken on his craft, his magic.

In this way, heavy and thoughtful,
warmer than oil or water,
I have rested, drooling at the mouth-hole.

I did not think of my body at needle point.
Even the cornea and the leftover urine were gone.
Suicides have already betrayed the body.

Still-born, they don’t always die,
but dazzled, they can’t forget a drug so sweet
that even children would look on and smile.

To thrust all that life under your tongue!-
that, all by itself, becomes a passion.
Death’s a sad Bone; bruised, you’d say,

and yet she waits for me, year after year,
to so delicately undo an old wound,
to empty my breath from its bad prison.

Balanced there, suicides sometimes meet,
raging at the fruit, a pumped-up moon,
leaving the bread they mistook for a kiss,

leaving the page of the book carelessly open,
something unsaid, the phone off the hook
and the love, whatever it was, an infection.

Esta dor espreme-me
como a uma esponja
com mãos gordas de lavadeira.
O seu toque é quente
faz o leite escorrer dos meus seios.

Esta dor mata um pouco de mim
sem pedir permissão duas vezes.
Ruge nas minhas vísceras
como mil homens enlouquecidos.
Incha-me como um balão
perfura-me com afecto.

Engravida-me com casulos vazios
dourados doridos cintilantes
Tudo para todos desfazer
numa chuva profusa
apoteótica.

And I’ve learned enough to keep my mouth shut
I’ve learned enough to watch my back
And I’ve learned enough to become wallpaper
And blend in with the cracks.

acordei amando-te tanto
com as mãos tapei os nossos umbigos.

Não te vejo neste momento, há florestas entre nós.
Há armas e medo. Maldade.
Ainda ontem te embalei, durante horas.
Entoei sons bárbaros de tristezas remotas, amor enlouquecido.
Plantei na tua boca o melhor néctar.
Orquestrei no teu corpo as melhores melodias.
…A porta bate.
Foste.
Tens mil passos pela frente.
E eu preciso de juntar estes cacos
de Tudo.