Statue of liberty Poem by Filipa Leal

And there she was - we, crossing through joy
by boat: father still in a moustache, brown hat,
mother wearing glasses and a scarf, Marta, who'd soon be a mother
but didn't yet know she was stowing away another passenger in her uterus,
Miguel, small and brave, always trying not to feel his feet hurting
from so many Avenues, and João Pedro, so newly-married, so newly-happy,
so almost a father without knowing it;
we, in the sun, our back to her, facing each other, sensing
New York would only matter because we'd been there together,
and in years to come only this would matter, only this:
having all been there, oblivious, settled in, comfortable
in our own hearts.

And suddenly there she was imitating the hills, an inscrutable green,
there she was mimicking defeated men, heavy, spikes on her head,
arm stretched out attempting to light, a book hanging,
there she was serious, mute, still,
all made of suspended fright, as if playing charades,
as if she would soon trick us, shout out,
her pose undone, her mouth open, laughing loudly ready to have fun,
free from the curiosity of those holding cameras as if seeing her
still and helpless were a spectacle worth registering.

We, arriving on the island, landing out of our absent-mindedness,
we, in our family size, holding our heads high in the unreachable shade,
we, laughing at the people we discovered in her head,
literally at the balcony of her head, those punters,
ignorant that a future September day would inhibit this ascent into heaven.

And there she was, full of herself, refusing to play host:

a tall, offended
statue
in need of a clean-up.

Translated by Ana Hudson, 2011