Ah Margarida,
If I gave you my life,
What would you do with it?
I’ d take my earrings out of hock,
Marry a blind man,
And live on a tree-lined block.
But Margarida,
If I gave you my life,
What would your mother say?
(Her mother knows me inside out.)
She’ d say you’ re a fool,
Without a doubt.
And Margarida,
If I gave you my life
Literally, by dying?
I’ d go to your funeral, firmly believing
You’ d gone mad
To try to love by not living.
But Margarida,
If this giving of my life to you
Were merely poetry?
In that case, forget it,
The deal’ s off,
Because I don’ t sell on credit.
Dictated by the Naval Engineer
Sr. Álvaro de Campos
in a state of alcoholic
unconsciousness.