vanishing point

foto: Diana Diriwaechter
fonte: http://www.dianadiriwaechter.com/gallery/index.html





vanishing point


he would see her passing by
in such a way
that he actually never did see her,
to be sure.

sometimes only the corridor.
empty, useless
in its eternity.

and he would return to his room,
into the company
of the bedside table
the alarm-clock
the tablets he had brought along.

the walking of naked feet
in the distance –
how can one who each night sleeps
in a different city
foretell it?

and once again he would
open the door
but she had already passed on to the other side,
most probably.

and he would look at the lights,
the door numbers,
everything fading into the
pit, as it should be.

and he wondered:
why is reality
so uncannily
accommodated,
why does everything occur
more or less
as it should be?

this was the sole reason
why he moved
from room to room,
using always
only one of the pillows,
unmaking always
only one side of the bed.

in the company of the lamps
on the bedside tables,
and this fog silence
filling the ears
through the night.

and again he would come out
to the doors,
and see her pass by,
but he couldn’t be
sure.

so that he could never invite her
to the inside of the poem,
and know for instance
why she dressed in red.

why should it had been decided
a long time ago
that it should be thus,

always an inkling only;

and he would return all over again
to the company of the screen,
where he strove
to reproduce the corridor;

its very persistence.

Vítor Oliveira Jorge 2007



Thanks to Daniela Kato for reviewing my translation.