(Artur Bual – ‘Natália Correia’, óleo sobre tela)

Death Do Us Part

How would we have
known what life would
be without Natalia
to tell us? 

For the first time in three score
and ten, the poet has not arisen
this morning, her cigarette
coldly, angrily, cunningly
burning out the space needful
for that day of redeeming
the extraordinary. 

Fearing fire singes no less
surely than does the flame itself
-a message that will not stand
without its messenger.

March 17, 1993