issue 24 > poetry > branco

It was the larvae (she tells herself).
They filled the car
and you drove among their wings,
your eyes filled with butterflies.
Later there was just the smell of moth balls.
It was an omen (she tells me again and again).
Now there are no wings beating
before your eyes.
The death of angels plays a part in this proceeding
against innocence.
Moth balls as well.
The same weight, when they evaporate,
drops upon our shoulders
laden down with tangerines.
We hold out a slice to a beggar
And he laughs in our face
as if eternity were in that belly laugh
with its moth-ball stink.
Our shoulders collapse like a tree
doubled over by a storm,
a tree that has withstood it all:
we used to whisper among its branches
and those secrets of our childhood,
before the larvae and the naphthalene.
Suddenly a cocoon, another date
linked by a dash to the date of birth.
Fuck it all. I won’t kick in a goddamn cent against innocence.
If you are god, raise up the angels. I, down here below,
expect zilch from you, just perhaps a drop of shame.
But you continue to parade the suffering of your larvae,
of your holy, holy mother, of your nails dripping
blood, blood that is purely a waste.
If at least you were a universal donor.
She and I: all we had were eyes filled with butterflies
and the thought that angels were guiding us,
but it was just medical degrees pinned
beneath glass, just ominous dirty gowns






Also by Rosa Alice Branco and translated by Alexis Levitin:

The First Stone
Spilled Earth Where Least