Selected Poems by E.R. De Siqueira

Facetiming

(First lockdown, 2020)

how soon is it hanging up the phone & instantly sigh

almost dial back & yearn for that voice materialised—your stubbled chin—

knowing it’s crimson dark at the Bosphorus & still mid-afternoon outside my window

                                        a tangerine tree flaming at the golden hour & Vico still catnapping

it feels like I’m finally home every time we talk in a foreign tongue

as if we’re in Copacabana again, strolling through those blazing streets

now I make a tour around your apartment kitchen through the screen

you open another bottle of Turkish wine, say it’s not really bad

& as you move away from the camera I’m able to remind myself how stupendously tall you look standing beside the fridge

the whole extension of your body, your motion, the print not quite fitting in the screen

for as you pour in the glass I’m confronted with some splendid joy

                                                                                           this same joviality I feel now when

talking on the phone I find we speak through my belly button:

my fingers crossing the Atlantic—just to see you—gushing out the canals you sailed through

Youth in White Trousers
after Henry Scott Tuke

Ever since I was a kid I’ve kept my pockets
Filled with unimportant things, trinkets or little
Relics collected in my cruise of life, a handkerchief,
Seeds of trees, flints that looked preciously
Magical, stones and seeds from fruits already
Digested in my constant hunger for sugar,
Dried leaves, which could be useful as bookmarkers,
Sweet wrappers, forgotten notes with telephone
Numbers, but never peaches, never a ripe peach
In my pockets, like this boy in the painting, never
The half-eaten peach, ripe and juicy
Staining the white trousers when at the shore
I hide from you behind a rock, see
The waves coming nearer, bringing me seaweeds.