Joyce Goldstein
From the Portuguese
He has one of those profiles you sometimes see
on a tin of sardines.
So I like to think of him as Portuguese.
I imagine him in a flat fisherman’s cap,
sitting on the quayside with his trousers rolled up,
ankle deep in the day’s slippery catch.
He slurps vinho verde from an earthenware jug,
sucks on cheap cigarettes.
Golf courses stretch for miles behind him.
He smiles at the local beauties as they pass by,
greets them in that lispy foreign way of his
through gaps in his crooked white teeth.
When the sun sets and the sky glows pink
he takes me to lie with him amongst the tangled nets,
pleasures me with his salt fish kisses.
I massage his warm brown back with olive oil,
shampoo his wavy long black hair
and comb his moustache into shape.
He sings to me Desespero
Tenho por meu desespero dentro de min.
The sorrowful sound of the fado brings tears to his eyes.
He will be late again tonight.
Wiping the dust from an old Mateus Rose bottle,
I place it on the table, add a candle and
sprinkle cinnamon on the pasteis de nata.
When he slithers up to me I will greet him
like the small finned fish that he is.
on a tin of sardines.
So I like to think of him as Portuguese.
I imagine him in a flat fisherman’s cap,
sitting on the quayside with his trousers rolled up,
ankle deep in the day’s slippery catch.
He slurps vinho verde from an earthenware jug,
sucks on cheap cigarettes.
Golf courses stretch for miles behind him.
He smiles at the local beauties as they pass by,
greets them in that lispy foreign way of his
through gaps in his crooked white teeth.
When the sun sets and the sky glows pink
he takes me to lie with him amongst the tangled nets,
pleasures me with his salt fish kisses.
I massage his warm brown back with olive oil,
shampoo his wavy long black hair
and comb his moustache into shape.
He sings to me Desespero
Tenho por meu desespero dentro de min.
The sorrowful sound of the fado brings tears to his eyes.
He will be late again tonight.
Wiping the dust from an old Mateus Rose bottle,
I place it on the table, add a candle and
sprinkle cinnamon on the pasteis de nata.
When he slithers up to me I will greet him
like the small finned fish that he is.
Joyce Goldstein lives and writes in South London.
Page(s) 47
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