Dorva's House

Love that ends on Saturday
is like news on the radio.
It turns into episodes
circulating in the neighborhood.

Pain increased from within
punishes with no elegance.
Each knife blade or gunshot
wounds in a harder way.

A tear that rolls down
traces an ocean's brief version.
No one can dance
to the preferred harsh music.

And there is always someone
with a clean face and naked arms
who turns on the gas
and finally takes one last breath.

Terror with no monsters
is barely water in a glass.
The solution dissolves
and finally thinks one last thought.

Love that ends on Saturday
is like news on the radio.
It hovers with its edge
of sky in the month of May.

--Translated by Steven F. White

From Blue Velvet.

Edimilson de Almeida Pereira lives in Juiz de Fora in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. He has published poetry and studies of Brazilian culture which include Corpo vivido, A roda do mundo (with Ricardo Aleixo), Negras raízes mineiras: Os arturos, and Mundo encaixado: Significação da cultura popular. He teaches Brazilian literature at the Federal University in Juiz de Fora.

Steven F. White's study and translations of contemporary Afro-Brazilian poetry have appeared in Callaloo 18.4, 19.1, and 20.1. He is the co-author with Edimilson de Almeida Pereira of "Brazil: Analysis of the Interactions and Conflicts in a Multicultural Society" in Cultural Cartographies: Comparative Studies in Race, Ethnicity and Nationhood. He also translated the subtitles for the feature-length film Cruz e Sousa: O Poeta do Desterro (1999) by Brazilian director Sylvio Back. White's CD Transversions (2001) includes his translations set to music of poetry by Latin American and Spanish writers. His most recent volume of poetry is Fire that Engenders Fire/Fuego que engendra fuego. He teaches at St. Lawrence University.

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