A Life Inverse

My life circled round
every side a destination  

—I’m a budding stone
the sky at my fingertips
I exist beyond the silence
inside voices and their words
inside voiceless words

And inside these insides where blue arouses the clitoris
as my dead pass teeming with sky
to the wonder of the earth floor dizzy with birds.

A floor within the swoon?
it is me passing by, it is we the budding dead
the sky within another sky
to the wonder of two eyes kaleido-scoping the horizon:

I have skies at my fingertips
and I am not short of ground:

My life, a circle route:
everywhere destination!

Originally published in the April 2019 issue of Words Without Borders. "A Life Inverse" © Rogério Manjate. By arrangement with the author. Translation © 2019 by Sandra Tamele and Eric M. B. Becker. All rights reserved.