O Mito

I barely know Miss
See Miss so short
Miss never sees me
But how I love Miss

Will I love Miss forever?
Or is it just a sex illusion?
Maybe the bust line
The leg, maybe the shoulder

I love Miss so strongly
I love Miss so painfully
That I shatter completely
And cry, boy, cry

But Miss keeps laughing
See Miss dancing
In sports she's alone
In the bar, how accompanied

And Miss speaks mysteries
Speaks Marxism, mascara, gas
Miss bombards me
Yet doesn't even see me

And we don't even understand each other
She's a lady of high trust
Has estates, yachts
Supports five thousand poor

Except me... Proudly
I suffice thinking of her
Thinking with nail, plasma
Fury, razor, discouragement

Love so absurd
Absurd it is
I never sat her on my lap
Nor saw her through the keyhole

But I know how much it costs me
To maintain this dignified ice
This gay indifference
And not scream: Come, Miss!

How to stop invading
Your house with a thousand locks
And tearing off your clothes
To show them to the people later

As it is, or should be
White, intact, neutral, rare
Made of translucent stone
Of absence and red ornaments

But how will Miss be
Let's say, in her bathroom?
Just thinking about her body
Mine aches... Yes

Because I need the body
To beg Miss
To ask her to step on me
To mistreat me... Not like this

But is Miss human?
Is she only in opera?
Is she a figure from books?
Is she an animal? Will I know?

I won't know? Only by asking
Begging: Ma'am, excuse me
Does your dress hide something?
Do you have real thighs? Waist?

Miss sometimes exists
Too much: It even frightens me
I walk alone down the street
And Miss brushes against me

I look: Miss is no longer there
People laughing at me
(In the curve of her shoe
The pink and pure heel.)

And I, unharmed, wandering
In streets of fish and tears
To the workers: Have you seen her?
No, say the workers

To the cowboys: Have you seen her?
The cowboys say no
Have you seen her, doctors?
But they answer: No!

Is it possible? I ask
To the newspapers: All silent
We don't know if Miss
Passed by. We know nothing

And it's eleven o'clock at night
Eleven rounds of beer
Eleven times I went around
My thirst; and Miss

Maybe dancing at the casino
Or, and it's more likely
Maybe kissing in Leblon
Maybe bathing in Colchis

Maybe painting in the mirror
In the taxi; maybe applauding
A certain miserable play
In a baroque and crazy theater

Maybe crossing her legs and drinking
Maybe cutting out figures
Maybe smoking a cigarette holder
Maybe laughing, maybe lying

That unbearable laughter
From Miss with a thousand teeth
(Toothpaste ad)
Is a knife tearing me apart

I start running on the beach
Let the sea come! Let the sharks come!
Let the lighthouse denounce me!
Let the fortress attack me!

I want to die suffocated
I want the most hideous of deaths
I want to return repelled
By the stench of the square

Already without head and without leg
At the apartment door
To stink: On purpose
Only for Miss

And Miss will appeal
To the perfume bottles
Open them all: But of all
I jump, and offend, and dirty

And Miss will run
(Not even covered; she's darting)
Maybe she'll throw herself from above
Her scream is: Help! And God

But I don't want any of that
Why bother Miss?
A blow to her head
It's mine that will hurt

And so I'm not a child
Miss studies my face
Poor thing: White race
Poor thing: Had a tie

Already dead, will she want me?
I curse if she's necrophiliac
Miss is life, loves flowers
Arteries and debentures

I know she will never forgive me
For killing myself to serve her
Miss wants strong men
Armored, invaders

Miss is all dynamic
Has a motor in her belly
Her nails are electric
Her kisses refrigerated

Disinfected, recorded
In a multilite machine
Miss, how healthy she is!
We are the sick ones

I am, the precarious poet
Who made Miss a myth
Feeding on Petrarch
Ronsard, Camões, and Capim

I know her soaked in milk
Meat, tomato, gymnastics
And I stick metaphysical
Enigmas, first causes

But if I tried to build
Another Miss that is not
This one with a bourgeois smile
And such foolish splendor?

I change her name; I cut her
A transparent dress
She loses human need
And I beat her; to draw blood

And I give her all the faces
Of my speculating dream
And we abolish the city
Already weightless and unclear

And we wade through science
Sea of hypotheses. The Moon
Becomes our scheme
For a fairer territory

And we place the data
Of a world without classes and tax
And in this world we install
Our avenged brothers

And in this glorious phase
Of extinct contradictions
I and Miss, ablaze
We want... What more do we want?

And I tell Miss: Friend
Finally we understand each other
I no longer suffer, you no longer shine
But we are the same thing

(A thing so different
From what I thought we were.)