Ana Luísa Amaral

trans. by Margaret jull costa

The Breath

The woman sitting opposite me
plays with her handbag— 
distractedly

She flips the handle-cum-wing
of the bag
back and forth
twines it around her fingers

Like a small
dancerly bird,
the wing-cum-handle comes alive
between the woman’s fingers

The bag is blue and the zip yellow,
the woman is old,
her skirt faded, her blouse tired
and old like her, she’s wearing slippers

But she plays with the wing
of that handbag
with the blithe air of a child or a sparrow,
unconcerned about the serious people—
hands serenely,
seriously resting on their laps—
who sit, motionless, reading the paper

The woman sitting
opposite me
plays with her handbag,
distractedly

Is she distracted? Or the handbag?

performing pirouettes,
elegant somersaults, brief dance steps,
with the sun lighting one side of her face,
the woman is almost pretty
with her absorbed child-like air
as she breathes life into that handbag,
which dances

distractedly

in her lap

Ana Luísa Amaral published her first volume of poetry, Minha Senhora de Quê, in 1990, and has since published seventeen collections. Translated into several languages, her work has brought her many prizes, including the 2008 Grande Prémio from the Portuguese Writers’ Association. She is also a translator, notably of the poetry of Emily Dickinson and the sonnets of William Shakespeare. A collection of her poetry, What’s in a Name, was published by New Directions in 2019. 

Margaret Jull Costa has been a literary translator for over thirty years and has translated works by novelists and poets such as Eça de Queiroz, José Saramago, Javier Marías, Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen, and Ana Luísa Amaral. In 2013 she was invited to become a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and in 2014 was awarded an OBE for services to literature.