DWELLING PLACES III (9) Poem by António Franco Alexandre

And I could give you
a cellophane floor where waves would slide
on cool nights,
four cage-coloured walls, and flawless
marble teeth. Love would enter
the scene on blind wings,

and honey, houseflies and the rest
would all be ways for us to stave off death.
Birds would grow in the place of fruits, fooled
by the relentless exaltation of rhyme,
and I might even know how to be sad
without a dog or proverbs,

with my blank eyes looking up, as if sleeping
on the dull blade of a jack-knife.