The virgin hen — Irene marques

I am Lídia

I come to bring you soup

In your illness

Chicken broth soup

Made from a virgin hen

Who slept beside us last Sunday

When we made love

When you were still healthy

In your skin, in your earth, in your pelvic bone

Which I caressed

Which you opened to me

So that I could pick through

And envisage the road that might lead the ahead

Somewhere, some place, some wet mucous membrane

From within and from without

The borders of your body

Last Sunday

When we felt the fecundity of a caress

I am Lídia

And I come to bring you soup

— Irene Marques, Sample poem from the collection Wearing Glasses of Water (Mawenzi House, 2007)