Furniture



For spitting secrets in your womb
for the notary
who joined our kisses with a pencil,
for landscapes that remain imprisoned
in our cushion of plucked trills,
for the panther even there is a finger
for your tongue
that of a sudden scorns all surfaces,
for revolutions of the earth without borders
in your wave of shipwrecks:  your womb;
and for the luxury imparted by your breasts
and of those the dog cleans while it licks you
an angel that barks at you if you clothe yourself,
four paws that think while they watch over you;
all of this costs me only your body,
an unusual volume of wages bargained over,
a putting of myself  to sew broken silences,
a putting of myself amongst detectives,
to care for me in the corners of your origin,
to mend my heroism of an ancient phonograph,
all year washing my ingenuous pockets,
turning back the watch of my smile,
softening the day when the visitor arrives,
imposing grammar on his noise,
putting in order
the sensible madhouse of your sex;
leave me now
that I might join with him my doubts at the broom,
I want to stay clean like a poor man’s plate;
you,
who filled my horseblood,
you,
who if I watch you my eye neighs
twist your instinct as if in a corner
and we may talk alone,
without use,
without the noise
of the rented furniture of your body.


Manuel del Cabral