[só]

by Angélica Freitas

só

me consolaria:

o ejetor de teias

do homem-aranha

só lá no alto

entre prédios

não se veria

este coração

sem plumas

– algum vilão

por aí

usa um

colar de penas

made in

my heart –

só lá em cima

entre edifícios

com o aval

das pombas

uma criança

olha pra cima

mamãe, mamãe

é a mulher

-aranha?

não seja tola

ela está

limpando

janelas

só

me consolaria:

o ejetor de teias

do homem-aranha

só lá no alto

entre prédios

não se veria

um coração

sem planos

[i'd only]

by Angélica Freitas

i’d only

be consoled by

spiderman’s

web-ejector

only up high

between buildings

no one would see

this heart

without plumes

—some villain

around here

wears a necklace

of feathers

made in

my heart—

only there up above

between towers

protected

by pigeons

a child

looks up

mommy, mommy

is it spider

woman?

don’t be silly

she is

washing

windows

i’d only

be consoled by

spiderman’s

web-ejector

only up high

between buildings

no one would see

a heart

without plans

translated from Portuguese by Hilary Kaplan

Angélica Freitas (b. 1973) is the author of Rilke shake (Cosac Naify, 2007) and Um útero é do tamanho de um punho (Cosac Naify, 2012), which was a finalist for the Portugal Telecom Prize. Her graphic novel, Guadalupe (2012), published by Companhia das Letras, was illustrated by Odyr Bernardi. Freitas’s poems have been translated and published in German, Spanish, Swedish, Romanian, and English. She was awarded a Programa Petrobras Cultural writing fellowship in 2009. Freitas co-edits the poetry journal Modo de Usar & Co. and lives in Pelotas, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Brazil.

Hilary Kaplan is the translator of Rilke Shake by Angélica Freitas (forthcoming from Phoneme Media), for which she received a PEN Translation Fund award, and Ghosts by Paloma Vidal (2014). Her work has been featured on BBC Radio 4 and in Modern Poetry in Translation, PEN America, The White Review, and elsewhere. Her writing on Brazilian poetry and poetics appears in eLyra, Jacket2, Rascunho, and the collection Deslocamentos Críticos. She holds an M.A. in comparative literature from Brown University and an M.F.A. from San Francisco State University.