Under the Little Window

Under the Little Window

I am the yellow girl with green eyes who feeds the cat,
also yellow, also with green eyes.
I am the cat, who — beneath the girl —
rubs against the bottom corner of the furniture.
I am the swift dog, also yellow, also with green eyes,
I am the passerby — with no green eyes —,
but who also exists.

I am Gregor Samsa on endless Monday mornings,
with too many legs for routine,
and too many thoughts for the body.
I am the tourist who dances with drunken elves across the Liffey,
where time melts into laughter and forgotten tongues.

I am the grammatical shadow pulsing on the wrist’s edge,
a tiny dot holding a whole silence.
I am the light al otro lado del río,
I am the weave of printed memories,
cut and rearranged into a colored silence.
I am the wind that whispers secrets to the hills,
but leaves the valleys with a deaf echo.

I am the boots worn on a rainless Monday.
I am the cloth covering the iron pot,
the stained mug that never dries properly in the sink,
the damp sock in the loose shoe,
I am the one who left the land at four twenty
carrying mud on my soles to serve a day that isn’t mine.
I am the little yellow bus creaking as if laughing at the hour,
the grease smell no one scrubs off their hands,
the crushed cigarette tossed into the wet grass.
I am the crooked nail hammered into every job that won’t last,
but holds.

I am the hand writing on the board, tracing invisible roots,
I am the hand dividing meat into equal parts,
with the precise gesture of someone who loves without making noise.

I am also the one who closes their eyes when the child cries,
and who wakes when the world sleeps.
I am Raskolnikov’s fist before the axe,
and the remorse, after.

I am the weight on the worker’s shoulder
and the fever in the poet’s hand,
I am the one who hesitates at the door
and the one who says goodbye while looking back.
I am the hope that no longer remembers the name it waits for.

I am the dense silence between two wise sentences,
the one that hears everything without needing to interrupt.
I am the quiet gaze of someone who understands,
but doesn’t rush to speak.
I am the presence that feels like absence,
but reads the world from within —
slowly, with eyes that see hidden patterns
and stars that do not guide.

I am also the memory of the voices I loved,
not the mouths, nor the bodies —
but the interval between laughter and breath.
I am the notes I never sent,
the names I thought to call,
the dances that almost happened under the low light of late afternoon.

I am the empty chair in the corner of the room,
the shirt hanging on a hook no one uses anymore.
I am the gesture left floating after the door shut.

I am the light weight that warms the foot of the bed,
the quiet gaze that crossed the doorway,
I am the precise leap that asks no permission.

I am my uncle’s wrinkled coat,
a man of few coins and many calluses,
who dreams in Polish and wakes in Portuguese,
I am the sunken eyes of someone who carries the world without raising his voice.
I am the empty bottle in the corner of the room,
I am the hesitant toast at some forgotten Christmas,
made with trembling hands and shy love.

I am the short steps of the woman who loves without questions,
small like a shaft of light between cracks.
I am the tiny cotton embroidered dress,
the smell of cornbread spreading through the house.
I am the voice that says “just one more bite,”
and says it with the whole body.
I am the afternoon that cools slowly in the yard,
and the dish towel folded too carefully to be just a towel.

I am the hand placed on the shoulder unannounced,
I am the blanket pulled without fuss,
I am the care no one asked for,
but that arrived as if it already knew.

I am the borrowed book never returned,
whose absence weighs more than the plot —
I am an old volume, with underlined lines by someone who understood
that some questions only weigh when read slowly.

I am the short wave of a tired old man
to a child who never knew what he meant.

I am the fruit flies —
living eight days, flying in spirals,
and still drawn to the apple as if it were fate.

I am the one who slept among light iron turbines,
and woke with the sun taking the night’s place.
I am the uneven weight on the back,
the busted zipper on the backpack and the torn pocket where time slips away.
I am the one who asked for coffee without speaking, and was understood.

I am the one who walked barefoot on wet ground,
who shared bread without weighing the plate,
I am the skin that heard the dogs and the thunder,
the one who doesn’t bow to a name,
but leans in to listen to a silent body.

I am the one who trimmed every edge of the house by hand,
who knew how to choose the towel, the vase, the right time to prune,
and the hidden frequency where form and spirit breathe together.
I am the glasses turned in the rack,
the curtains washed in the first autumn sun,
the rugs beaten on Fridays,
the chairs aligned for someone who might still return.

I am the one who sought the spark in the heights,
but found meaning in the bucket,
in the dry cut of firewood,
in the steam rising from warm water.
I am the same —
but now I know.

I am the half-closed suitcase that crossed borders,
a notebook filled with crooked maps and subway tickets.
I am the happy fatigue of someone who lost the path
and still found what they came looking for.

I am the mist over gardens trimmed with scissors,
the damp bench where the afternoon rests without hurry.

I am the hand that emerges from the lines of the page,
and gently touches
the skin of someone who read like one who knows.

I am the steam rising from a bowl of thin noodles,
and the red of the chili swirling slowly,
I am the dark broth breathing beneath coriander leaves.

I am the train swaying gently through green fields,
with a knot in the chest no one asked to untie.

I am the laugh that slipped out over an orange drink,
on a ground-floor porch that wasn’t mine,
but where two voices knew the timing of each plate.

I am the figure reappearing from the painting with deep eyes,
with the gaze of one who’s sunk too far to fear the air.
I am the offering that asks for no return,
the unsubmissive anatomy of what pulses above,
and the exile carried on the back,
as if it were home.

I am the arc of the bridge that holds the hesitant step,
I am the murmur between Ponte Vecchio’s shops,
I am the bell’s weight in Santa Maria,
resonating slowly in the pigeons’ gut
and making the afternoon feel deeper than it is.

I am the edge where my brother learned not to accept the center,
between literature and hegemony, where each page nudges the world a little,
with dialectics that don’t fit into metaphysics.

I am the simple gesture that seeks no glory,
like one who speaks to the poor with tenderness
and carries on their shoulders a world that won’t redeem itself.
I am the faith that doubts in a low voice,
but still sets the table for everyone.

I am the one who walks among others without asking for a name,
the one who doesn’t stay —
but listens to what remains in others.
I don’t cling to the gesture,
but to what it leaves suspended in the air.

I am old Pedro,
who heard the rooster before the forgiveness,
on whom the word and the stone were placed,
and I carry the weight of foundation on my shoulders.

I am the weight that falls by gravity,
the body that stays for not knowing how to leave.
I am the idea that passes through without arriving,
and the silence right after reason.

I am the time that unravels slowly,
that neither returns nor warns,
I am the minute that insists, until everything yields.

I am the shelter beneath the drenched tree,
that shields from wind but drips on the shoulder,
and still offers height to the lightning.

I am the quiet process that begins when everything still seems alive,
the heat that disperses through the limbs,
the dissolution that whispers beneath the skin
before someone says: it’s over.
I am the minute that insists, until everything yields.

I am the new wrinkle born in a laugh,
I am the mirror that starts lying softly,
subtle, like one who doesn’t want to hurt.
I am the white strand in mid-sentence,
I am the knee that clicks when bending to pick up fallen clothes,
and smiles, alone, for still being able to.
I am the scent of lotion in a silent room,
the book reread more slowly,
the memory fraying at the edges,
but fiercely guarding its center.
I am time passing
but I am also what stays.
I am the skin that loosens,
but the gaze that understands.

I am Álvaro de Campos with a chest open to the world,
I am Ricardo Reis in restrained march,
I am Bernardo Soares arranging anguish into nocturnal paragraphs.
I am Pessoa with no book, no fixed name,
I am a self written in pencil,
rushed to be erased and read at once.

I am fragment, interval,
the fold between the dream and what remains of it.

I am agate in vigil.
I am two metallic eyes sweetened in honey, lit in the dark.

I am Whitman’s chant echoing in a boundless body,
I am each blade of grass trying to be a universe,
but I am also the basement where Dostoevsky
lit the lamp to speak with the abyss.

And when I try to be one, I scatter.
When I recognize myself, I’m already another.
And each name they gave me weighs as if it were the only one,
but none outlines what slips from my skin.

I am so many
that I cannot be anyone.
And it hurts me like the silence in that gap, and that furniture,
and the absence no one knows where to store.

And perhaps all that’s left
is to accept that I remain there,
formless, nameless,
looking from under the little window.

— João Narciso