POEMS FROM THE PORTUGUESE

POEMA DE BÉNÉDICTE HOUART  

são as mulheres que

são as mulheres que
fazem chorar as cebolas
como se descascassem a própria vida
e, arredondando-se então, descobrissem
um corpo, o seu
uma vida, a sua
e, no entanto, nada que de verdade
pudessem seu chamar
ou talvez sim, mas só
aquela gota de água salpicando
um canto do avental onde
desponta uma flor de pano colorida que
ainda ontem ali não ardia

Unpublished, July 2010
© Bénédicte Houart

women are the ones who

women are the ones who
make the onions weep
as if they´ve peeled their own lives
and discovered, while becoming rounder,
one body, their body
one life, their life,
and yet this was nothing
they could truly call their own
or perhaps they could, but merely
that drop of water that speckled
a corner of their aprons where
a colourful cloth flower had budded, a flower
that wasn’t burning there just the day before

© Translated by Ana Hudson, 2010
in Poems from the Portuguese