SYRINX, A PASTORAL FICTION (XVI) Poem by António Franco Alexandre

You can pick me up, put me on the scale
of yes and no, and measure my virtue in inches;
my heart is still stored in a cool,
dry place, far away from words.
And I like being alone, in the smallest cell
of a sterile prison on the slopes,
singing all night long against my window
that looks out on to other, similarly barred windows.
You can even recite (but you don't recite)
those funny sentences in which you fly
over distant hills that tremble in awe
at such a solemn, utterly new dawn,
and you can bring me cool water; I'll still roll
myself into a tight ball and not budge
even when the inexplicable monster
rips my bedsheet with its claws.