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José Luís Peixoto
“Capricorn at his feet”

Time passed and I was not expecting that, one day, you might arrive. But time passed. One day, you arrived. We were walking in the street. I was thinking of something other than the idea of your arriving, like an avalanche that drags everything in its wake, like a multitude treading on every piece of earth. And the street was deserted when we approached. We were strangers at the moment when we looked at each other. That moment passed and, inside ourselves, we met one another. You arrived. I wasn’t expecting you. With you, you brought tenderness, desire and, later, fear. You arrived and I didn’t know such tenderness, such desire. At home, in my room, in this room, I saw your eyes once again in my memory, the tenderness, the desire. And, afterwards, that which I knew, the fear. And time passed. You and I felt that time passing but, when we met again, we knew that we hadn’t separated.

ifrom Antídoto [Antidote]

b. 1974 Portugal
© Instituto Camões, 2007