HIT AND RUN Poem by Manuel António Pina

More than silence was needed,
what was needed was at least a screaming fit,
a nervous breakdown, a fire,
doors slamming, a rushing about.
But you said nothing,
you wanted to cry, but first you had to straighten up your hair,
you asked me the time, it was 3 p.m.,
I don't remember now which day, maybe a day
when it was I who was dying,
a day that had begun badly, I had left
the keys in the lock on the inside of the door,
and now there you were, dead (dead and even
looking dead!), gazing up at me in silence stretched out on the road,
and no one asked a thing and no one spoke aloud.