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the perfect storm

her hands shake / when he sleeps

  • Angélica Freitas
  • Fall 2020
Illustration by Sarula Bao
  • Poem
  • Violence

Translated from the Portuguese by Hilary Kaplan. Scroll down to read the original poem.

and then, thanks to men
in lavish shades of grey
in charge of the country
and the economy
and who a few years ago slept
like dogs
at the foot of the Market

any joão or josé
connected and nonconformist
feels like a thor in the tropics:
god of thunder and white

it’s his house, he gives the orders
everything that breathes in the bedroom
and adjacent
is subject, subjugated

inside, it’s virile
outside, the virus
(a difficult choice to make 
according to the newspapers)

if no woman lays her head
lightly on the pillow
she will not lose sight of the hammer
of her divine thor of clay

her hands shake
when he sleeps

and she doesn’t take her eyes off
the weather reports


a tempestade perfeita

então, graças aos homens
que esbanjam tons de cinza
no comando do país
e da economia
e que há alguns anos dormiam
feito cães
ao pé do Mercado

qualquer joão ou josé
conectado e inconformado
sente-se um thor nos trópicos:
deus do trovão e branco

é sua a casa, ele dá as ordens
tudo que respira no quarto
e adjacências
é súdito, subjugado

aqui dentro, o varão
lá fora, o vírus
(segundo os jornais
uma escolha difícil)

se nenhuma mulher pousa leve
a cabeça no travesseiro
não perde de vista o martelo
do seu divino thor de barro

suas mãos tremem
quando ele dorme

e não tira o olho
dos boletins meteorológicos


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Angélica Freitas

Angélica Freitas (Brazil, 1973) has published three books of poetry, among them “Rilke Shake” (Phoneme Press, 2015), translated by Hilary Kaplan and winner of the Best Translated Book Award in 2016. At the moment, Freitas is a DAAD artist-in-residence in Berlin, Germany.

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