A Strand Of Hair Poem by José Tolentino Mendonça

I abandon house and garden my place at the table
my favorite jacket, folded on the bed
this almost banal truth
that was me all my life

I don't open the door when people knock
(sometimes they knocked by mistake)
I don't tally up certainties
what separates one form from another
has always escaped me

Yesterday the chilly air from the fields
began to be clearer
I thought it was just passing and it turned out
to be a secret that my body
was telling my body
once and for all

But when I fell to the ground
like a strand of hair
(one of those that fall early
from the head of a young man
and since no one notices
they're all the more lost)
you were at my side

You set fire to cities
you drowned armies
in the red sea of your rage
you mortgaged precious lands
to be at my side


Translation: 2006, Richard Zenith