For Antônio Rangel Bandeira
I
I exit from my poem
like one who washes his hands.
A few shells turned, crystallized
by the sun of attention: a few words
that I have set free as I might a bird.
Perhaps one of those shells
(or birds) might remember,
concave, the body of the dead
gesture already filled by the air;
perhaps, like the empty
shirt that I have shed.
Translated by Djelal Kadir