A POEM THAT CAN SERVE AS AN AFTERWORD Poem by Mário Cesariny de Vasconcelos

streets where the danger is obvious
green arms of occult practices
corpses floating on the water
sunflowers
and a body
a body for blocking the day's lamps
a body for falling through a landscape of birds
for going out early in the morning and coming back very late
surrounded by dwarfs and lilac fields
a body for covering your absence
like a bedspread
a place setting
a perfume

this or its contrary, but somehow gaping
and with many people there to see what it is
this or a population of sixty thousand souls devouring scarlet pillows on their way to the sea
and arriving, at dusk,
next to the submarines

this or a torso dislodged from a verse
and whose death makes everyone proud
o pallid city built
like a fever between two floors!
we'll home deliver
dirt for filling up candelabras
smoldering beds for erect lovers
slates with forbidden words
- a woman for the fellow who's losing interest in life (Here, take her!),
two grandchildren for the old woman at the end of the line (That's all we have!) -
we'll pillage the museum give a diadem to the world and then require it to be put back in the same place,
and for you and for me, favorably situated,
some poison to pour into the giant's eyes

this or a face a solitary face like a boat in search of a gentle breeze for the night
if we're sand that's sifted
in a slack wind among painted bushes
if an intention is bound to reach its shore like the ocean's currents shipwrecks and storms
if the man of hostels and boardinghouses lifts his damp cratered forehead
if the sun outside is shining more than ever
if for a minute
it's worth
waiting
this or happiness in the simple form of a pulse
shimmering amid the foliage of the loftiest lamps
this or the said happiness the airplane of cards
that comes in through the window that goes out by the roof
so does the pyramid exist?
so does the pyramid say things?
is the pyramid each person's secret with the world?

yes my love the pyramid exists
the pyramid says many many things
the pyramid is the art of dancing in silence

and in any case

there are public squares where a lily can be sculpted
subtle regions where blueness flows
gestures belonging to no one boats underneath flowers
a song by which to hear you arrive