Adélia Prado
Translated from the Brazilian Portuguese by Ellen Doré Watson
Abduction
Just when nothing seems to be wrong,
not even the mounds of trash bags,
something invisible makes your hair stand on end.
Once, a flock of birds
disputing seeds.
Today, goats grazing in the low grass.
When uttermost attention leaves you distracted,
the kidnapper grabs you
and a far cry from here
you’ll discover the place
the awakener takes his ease.
Citrine Earrings
My life’s so lyrical,
it’s hard to see where I suffered.
After decades of suppressed desire,
I pierced my ears.
Toys with a bit of brightness,
tiny as grains of rice,
they make me kinder.
Apart from my sisters,
who pay tax
on the selfsame restraint,
hardly anyone noticed.
I became braver,
like women I thought frivolous
but were simply more humble.
Anything That Shines
This machine shop is eternal, these cars,
the white light of the sun, all eternal.
In this moment, especially this one,
death’s not looming, so it doesn’t exist.
Even if it stirs, everything else stays still and alive,
in this good world where we don’t eat right,
delighting in a bag lunch of carbs and pork rinds.
God, how I love this!
What a perfect place!
Sure, someone dies now and again, but it’s all quite eternal,
we only cry because we’re congenial.
Full as life is,
I need only a little bit of everything,
and all the moreso as I discover
that God expects the worst from me—
in the golden chalice of sewage
I’ve carried on my back
ever since I opened my eyes
to drink the first milk
from my embarrassed mother’s breast.
Naked and singing, I offer my arms
raised in contentment.
This is where I’m from,
where I cut my hair with dull scissors,
where, thirsty for gold, I gouged the ground
hoping for shiny.
And what I find, dark and dull
on this radiant day, is singular and doesn’t sparkle.
It came from You. Life. From opacity. From the depths of You.
Abba! Father! Accept what disgusts me,
the swill that hid Your face.
I live on what is not mine.
Take my life.
Deprive me no longer
of the fresh innocence infusing me.
The Father
God doesn’t talk to me,
not even the tiniest word He whispers to the saints.
He knows I’m scared, and if He did,
I’d make like an amulet-draped aborigine
and offer a sacrifice to the cracking sounds in the woods,
to save me from dying of fright.
I don’t know how to thank Him for his affections—
the hummingbird flitting into my room,
a blossom blooming before my eyes,
three turtle doves stock-still on the garden wall
and an unexpected joy:
the thrill of spirit vibrating in the flesh.
Even now, old as I am, He treats me like a daughter.
Of thunderstorms, He shows only the beginning and the end.
Sewing Room
An imaginary ovum,
thick, dull, yellow,
pollen and down,
which the most potent
not-yet-invented technology
would open into universes.
What seems individual is various.
If I were a good Christian
I’d surrender to God all that I don’t understand
and finish the embroidery forgotten in the basket.
I’ve got vertigo. I loved Aristotle fervently,
but left him long ago for Plato.
I got bored, yearning for meat and bones,
the acidity of blood and sweat.
What truly exists saves us from turmoil,
A vestal virgin, I am not bitter.
I’ll get what I desire, carrying my cross
and dying on it.