Except For You Poem by José Tolentino Mendonça

What's said about winter may be said about youth
it's an abstract season
at a certain moment we feel suddenly cold
as if time no longer consented
the unexpected rapture which often
too often stems from that truth

But there's something whose crux
is farther or nearer

You don't even know for how many years
you'll keep going back to the woods
to the details you ignored
to the remnants of that first love
we all think we've gotten over

Translation: 2006, Richard Zenith