100 Refutations: Day 90

civil status

let them make amendments
god what do i care
and if you do care then go
start your revolutions
while you’re at it pack
my bags for me i just can’t
i’m too hungover put
my things in boxes for me
cast your votes of no confidence
or chastity vows it’s all the same
to me i don’t care

go on change the name in the contract
a name is only worth the ink you
spend on it: one millilitre
a piece of paper doesn’t change much
a life a house
comings and goings
the more you try to
erase my traces
the more you confirm
that i exist

you can argue by yourself for
the dishes the undeclared
taxes no one will heckle me anyway
when i leave through the front
door a hand behind me
the other smoking

i am only
impressed with this one thing:
it all finds a way life goes on
with or without a coup
with or without september seven
soon enough we will become used to it
now knowing if life does go on
without you that i
don’t know
but i won’t protest
i will get some sleep

Bios

Adelaide Ivánova

Adelaide Ivánova is a Brazilian journalist and activist working with poetry, photography, translation, and publishing. She is the author of several books, exhibitions, and other creative works and is currently editing the anarchist-feminist zine MAIS PORNÔ, PVFR!. She splits her time between Cologne and Berlin. For more information, visit her website.

Francisco Vilhena

Francisco Vilhena is Assistant Editor at Granta. He writes short essays and translates from the Portuguese. His work can be found in Modern Poetry in Translation, Clinic, Wasafiri, Granta, and elsewhere.

Copyright (c) Adelaide Ivánova. English translation copyright (c) Francisco Vilhena, 2018.