because god dug
a well in my chest
stretched to me the floor of disaster
and teaches me---not from the cradle---
to keep the closing of horizons in the tongue
to live with the diligence of the hole
makes me believe in divine protection, crossing to the resurrection
but I see inaudible cancer in my hands
the map of days without a route, the portrait of loneliness
the time that searches me skinning my blood.

by Raquel GAIO, in "MANCHAR A MEMÓRIA DO FOGO", Editora Urutau (Brasil), 2019

(English translated by Armando TABORDA, 2021)