2 Poems by Cristina DeSouza

UNFATHOMABLE

What is this word I can’t find?

It has no syllable, no accent,
except for the blue of your eyes.

It is nowhere.
It is a lone pleonasm in my
solitude made of atoms, of bodies
that don’t touch, of souls that
don’t feel and don’t hold each
other in the hopeless night.

Extinct word of my vocabulary:
Cryptic.
Elyptical.

Subject of a passive verb, making
me into the direct object, confused
and lost in an adverb of time of
this meaningless sentence of mine.


IDENTITY

I hide for endless hours
while I search for myself
in the mirror, whose eyes
stare at me.

I hibernate for days
in skin that is not mine,
in bones that fracture
slowly and I don’t feel it.

I retire to a dark cave
called bedroom, in which
there is a white bed
where I die alone every day
and lie sleepless every night.

I cross my name from
my identity card, I lose
my photo, I erase my face
with the sleeve of an old coat.

I forget myself
in a drawer.


Bionote

Cristina DeSouza is a physician and poet living in Phoenix, AZ. Originally born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, she writes poems both in English and Portuguese.  Nowadays she is finishing her Masters of Fine Arts at Vermont College of Fine Arts, VCFA.  She has poetry published both in Brazil and in the US and a book of poems published in Portuguese, released in November 2011. She can be reached at prismaticblue@cox.net.