“Mangas verdes com sal” by Rui Knopfli

Green mangos with salt

Distant flavor, acrid flavor
of childhood the pocketknife shared
in the broad semicircle of friendship.

Slow flavor, reconstituted happiness
at an unprotected moment, at low tide,
at the instant of supreme humiliation.

Insinuating flavor that comes back slowly
to the bitter palate, to the burning mouth,
to the crest of time, to the middle of life.

From Memória consentida (1982)