Vasco Pereira da Costa. “Matateu”. My Californian Friends: Poetry. Trans. Katharine F. Baker and Diniz Borges. San Jose: Portuguese Heritage Publications of California, 2009, pp. 13-16.

Herdou áfricas na pele e no olhar
e a malta ao vê-lo jogar a bola no liceu
vá de o chamar
o Matateu.
Era o interior esquerdo o miolo
da esquerda da nossa linha.
Um dia esgueirou-se pela esquerda em busca do golo
da sua vida numa jogada inventiva e repentina.
A Defesa nem o viu passar: driblou a guerra.
Foi para a América. Fintou a clandestinidade.
Nunca mais voltou à nossa terra.
Em Boston recolheu carrinhos de compras
no parking dum mall na periferia da cidade.
Em Chicago em noites de frios e de sombras
vigiou as gavetas de uma morgue deserta.
Foi vaqueiro em Tulare quase cowboy
(e interrompe sem prosápia de pícaro nem de herói:
a saudade aperta
e a solidão dói).

Foi troca-fintas em Las Vegas e no Reno
e com um chuto certeiro a encher o pé
gritou goooolo na relva rapada de um casino.
(E logo-logo off side em Santa Fe).
Foi grumete num paddle wheel boat do Mississippi
a navegar de Saint Louis a New Orleans.
Fez amor quanto pôde num florido grupo hippie.
Foi parar ao Alabama a apanhar amendoins.
Teve angústias de penalty num night club de Atlanta
mendespinto costa-a-costa em jogadas de habilidade.
(E há uma pausa de nó na garganta:
tanto dói a solidão como a saudade.)
Numa rua de Sacramento encontrei o Matateu
(onde o interior esquerdo de poderoso remate?)
À queima-roupa disparou que envelheceu
e que já não há segunda-mão para o desempate.
Agora leva e traz meninos à escola
num schoolbus amarelo metido numa farda.
No Estádio da Sorte rasteirado! roubaram-lhe a bola
– e o árbitro fechou os olhos à malandrice.
Saudades da nossa terra? – Em barda!

E molham-se os versos do que ele me disse.

He inherited Africa in his skin and looks,
and when we saw him play soccer in high school,
we began calling him
our Matateu.
He played left offensive midfielder the brains
of the left side of our line.
One day he slipped away from the left side in search of
his life’s goal, in an inventive and swift play.
The Defense never saw him pass: he dribbled through the war.
Went to America. Dodged immigration status.
Never again returned to our shores.
In Boston he rounded up shopping carts
in a mall parking lot on the edge of town.
In Chicago on cold, shadowy nights
he watched over drawerfuls of corpses in a deserted morgue.
He was a dairyman in Tulare almost a cowboy
(and interrupts without boasting like a rogue or hero:
the yearning squeezes him
and the solitude aches).

He swapped feints in Las Vegas and Reno
and with a well-aimed kick solidly off his foot
shouted g-o-o-a-l on the neatly-manicured casino lawn.
(And quick-quick he was off-side in Santa Fe).
He was a rookie on a paddlewheel boat on the Mississippi
shuttling between St. Louis and New Orleans.
In a flower-child hippie commune he made as much love as he could.
He went to Alabama to harvest peanuts.
Suffered anguish over a penalty in a night club in Atlanta
made like Mendes Pinto traveling coast-to-coast on his skill plays.
(And there’s a time-out for the lump in his throat:
solitude hurts as much as longing.)
On a Sacramento street I ran into our Matateu
(what happened to our inside left with his powerful goal?)
Point-blank shots have aged him
and without time left in the second-round for a tie-breaker.
He now shuttles children back and forth to school
on a yellow schoolbus, dressed in a uniform.
In Lady Luck’s stadium he tripped! They stripped him of the ball
– and the referee closed his eyes to this cheating.
Yearning for our homeland? – In spades!

And these verses are moist with tears over what he told me.