I Don’t Know How Many Souls You Have, My Feathered Fernando

The maestro waves his baton¹
Emu makes me sing
new notes: a diapason
appassionato
I feel the blood-pain but can’t see the claw.²
Semiotic bird
object-coding Barthes’ bliss
einfuhlung abates.
Why is it to be happy, we cannot know we are?³
Waking with Emu.
Your face the first thing I see.
My fine, feathered friend.
And it all has something of love
Even if this love can’t speak⁴
Notes:
¹Fernando Pessoa, “Slanting Rain.”
²Fernando Pessoa, “I Hear Night Across the Street.”
³Fernando Pessoa “Almost Anonymous You Smile.”
⁴Fernando Pessoa, “The Child That Laughs in the Street.”

Ariana-Sophia Kartsonis and Caleb Adler
I Don’t Know How Many Souls You Have, My Feathered Fernando first appeared in Spork.