Palavras que Ficam (Words that Remain) por RoseAngelina Baptista (a poem in both Portuguese and English)

Palavras que Ficam

Para Álamo Oliveira

Words That Remain
For Álamo Oliveira

These are the words that remain,
etched in the lines of your face.
Words without the illusion
of a dimple.

On your face, an old surname,
Oliveira,
which I gathered like scaffolding
on Pico de Areeiro.

I gathered it, drowned it in smoke,
beneath a burning blanket
of clouds at sunset.

                         *** 

Words that remain
for their human weight,
glimpses of lava pools,
adrift like pumice stone.

Words that pierce through silence,
as they listen through cartilage and bone
to the pounding of desire,

and to the unexpected gift
of fullness in the present,
beyond all images.

I read your face
and saw, in the vessels of your throat,
clay jars of water,
drenching fierce blue flowers
not meant to last.

I read your face
and relished your verses,
written by tentacles
wrapped in mist.