They asked why I came here. I replied
to hear the rain falling in the street,
footsteps running into the wet dark.
To consume fish and more fish, drink tinto,
branco, verde, secco, make love, sleep late,
waking to the calls of ships on the Tagus.
And the arrival of what ships did I wait for?
I described the Alfama winding on itself,
a heap of washing lines and lemon trees,
sardine scales underfoot, children tumbling
down its alleys. In the cold empty cathedral
what I felt was cold, empty, a barn
built by the thugs of the Second Crusade.
What could I tell them of this?
I spoke of Guincho, its name that means scream
for the Atlantic wind rushing through, days
watching the slow shift in the quick sea
arriving in walls of water, the sea’s change
and the light’s change till the round bowl
of the earth’s rim’s lost and the light gone.
And where did I think such light went?
They were amused, patient. Those were early days,
I was not yet accused. At my second examination
they were seven, young, clever, soft spoken,
a clerk scratching, his tongue between his teeth.
There were no charges, the questions random:
could a ship of armed men be hidden in a fist?
Did I believe their mares sired by the West Wind?
Did cheese produce mites, bad meat blowflies,
did a closed box of old rags generate mice?
I was to help clear up certain allegations,
they as anxious as I, and so forth, to be done.
I have pen, ink, paper, candle, a writing desk
and this white room wherein to write my confessions.