Halfway to a House

I take light from the closet drawers. The first day
of fall. And all those years at the bottom.
Before, it wasn't me. It was a house under construction.
I before myself. Now I dismantle the summer,
dresses flying, naked feet beside a dress.
Time loses itself in the change of the seasons,
but in this loss someone exists in me.
A voice laughs deep within the closet.
The sun so low, in the bottom drawer.

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Poetry From the September 2007 issue: Our Sonnets from the Portugese

Rosa Alice BrancoRosa Alice Branco

Rosa Alice Branco teaches the Psychology of Perception and Contemporary Culture at the Institute of Art and Design near Porto, Portugal. She is the organizer of an annual poetry festival in her hometown of Aveiro, serves as Secretary to the Portuguese PEN Club, and attends international poetry festivals all over the world. Her work has been translated into numerous languages, including French, Spanish, Italian, and Arabic. In the USA, Alexis Levitin's translations of her poems, all of them the result of spirited collaborative agon with the poet, have appeared in various magazines, including Artful Dodge, The Café Review, Green Mountains Review, Gulf Coast, The Hollins Critic, Marlboro Review, Metamorphosis, The New England Review, Osiris, Prairie Schooner, Salamander, Seneca Review, and The Temple.

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Translated from PortuguesePortuguese by Alexis LevitinAlexis Levitin

Alexis Levitin is professor of English at SUNY-Plattsburgh and a translator from the Portuguese. He has published twenty-two books of translations, mostly Portuguese poetry, including work by Portugal's best known and most popular living poet, Eugenio de Andrade.

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