Innocence
rough mornings burn away sleep and fever fizzes up the most vertical of words. your finger on my name exerts agonising pressure and a spasm runs through this text while hell is slowly hatching inside my chest like a snake creeping into the unsteady hollows of the hours. sparks fly out of books and the flames urgently heal each less intended breath but there are assignments less sweet than others and there are syllables set to vibrate in the core of the deepest innocence. © Translated by Ana Hudson, 2013 First Published on Poems From the Portuguese