Wonderful Portuguese blood.

Undergrowth

Darkness begins at the edges,
inches toward the center,

where a seed waits for its hour,
at ease, with no fear of the dark,
as it is the nature of the seed

to keep from light, creep
toward moisture, inter itself for the entirety
of a season. Though in this case
darkness is of a drier, flatter sort,

one that comes on slowly and always,
alien to any purpose or cause,
till what remains is only stone upon stone.

Yet the seed waits, insistent.
And even mistaken, gets it right.

.......................

Scherzo

Yesterday, at night,
you and I, fully complicit,
left our windows open
instead of closing them
as usual, just to see
what would happen.

And something did: a wind
swept the streets,
emerging from our windows,
from within our dressers
where, for some time,
we had stored tornadoes
for a special day (which turned out
to be yesterday).

The wind took up pieces of sky
that were obstructing
our meager studio apartments;
enormous uncomfortable clouds
rolled past the window
like lazy pachyderms
and sprawled out, unfettered.

The fresh unexpected air
from our apartments
caused any number
of disruptions on the street:
the poor pedestrians
grew intoxicated
from the excess of oxygen
and reeled, lightheaded,
about the empty walks.

I was the first to start dumping
out the window
bucket after bucket of water
flowing from unknown sources
in unexplored regions
under the bed
and behind the dresser,
but it was you who let loose
up on the eighth floor
the first aquatic plants,
the fish, reptiles, and birds;

I, however, instituted fur
and the glandularity
of our essential mammals.

And as the streets
were already paved,
and the light posts
had already evolved
into colossal trees,

and as it wasn't even three A.M. yet
and the bulk of creation
had already been completed,
we made our way to the street
in search of an open bar.

In the first one we found
our homespun miracles
were the topic du jour;
and we, thirsty and incognito,
asked for some beer,
and studied, with neither awe
nor pride, the minute
and delicate grass
sprouting at our feet.

....................

Bacchanal

Armed with pencils, apples, and matches,
we'll conquer all of Nineveh in the morning—
unless it's a beach day, or we've had no sleep.
At this point there's no day that isn't golden,
every hour is like matins in this season
of cool water, madrigals, and sex.

So many mouths, hands, chances for sex,
so many reasons to light a match;
in such a horizontal season,
what a fantasy our idea for morning.
Why not drink it directly, the sun's gold,
before we're overtaken by sleep?

These ideas murmured from lack of sleep,
distracted by hunger for this much sex...
In the meantime, Nineveh, golden,
awaits combustion from our matches
upon the first breath of morning.
We reject the torpor of the season

(being such an indolent, bacchic season
of mandolins, apples, and sleep)
and go naked in the haze of morning
searching out glory, translated into sex,
candlesticks, spoils, and matches,
music boxes and idols made of gold.

We'll capture the city, golden
in the final hour of the season,
when nothing remains, not a match,
a drop of sun, of sky, of sleep.
Our final entrance: all-out sex
in the grandeur of the last morning.

When we recall it, it's already morning,
eyes cloudy from dreams tinted gold,
skin tepid with the scent of recent sex,
bags forgotten in the station, the season
swept of explanations, vestiges of sleep,
leaving a mess of coffee and matches.

Then the urgent first matches of morning
will erase all trace of sleep and pillaged gold.
Of this season nothing will remain but the sex.

--Paulo Henriques Britto