Mia Couto

Time for some passion on this Wednesday morning!

Here’s a poem by Mozambican writer António Emílio Leite Couto, better known as Mia Couto (born July 5, 1955), who won the Camões Prize in 2013, the most important literary award in the Portuguese language, and the Neustadt International Prize for Literature in 2014.

Longing

It hurts me this longing
for the shock of bodies
wounding each other with tenderness
it pains me that distant memory
of your dress
falling at our feet

It hurts me the longing
for that time when I inhabited you
like salt infusing the sea
like light contracting
the surprised pupils of the eyes

When will I be your shadow again, your desire
your relentless nights
your persistence, your need
I
am weak
without you
I
was water, vegetal sap
Now I’m a trembling droplet, an exposed root

My love
bring again
the clarity of water
put my vagabond tenderness back to work
dive your fingers
into the spell of my chest
and chase from my deepest cave
the beasts that torment my sleep

--Mia Couto
[Translated from the Portuguese by Joana Araújo & Zack Rogow] Originally published in Poetry Daily