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Translation

The manager with the red tie

Dirceu Villa

Translated by Kathleen Mccaul Moura. Read her contextualizing piece, ‘We Are Favela!’, in the London Review of Books.

 

The manager with the red tie
enters at noon
the annexe of the restaurant
in the Conjunto Nacional

the manager with the red tie
wears a cold grey pinstripe suit,
laquered hair cosa nostra
and a neutral air, impeccable

the girls talk at his side,
laugh with succulent lips
but the young manager with the red tie
is a lunchtime ascetic:

He separates with care the meat
from the bone: and under the eyes floating
in white globs
maintains the indifference of metal.

thin, like a Ermenegildo Zegna poster,
the polished manager with the red tie
is a stoic of mastication.
He says something, succinct and to the side,

and looks at his hands guiding the forks,
the napkin caesuras the labour
of the jaw; no ardour
underlies (undermines) his clerical smile.

The red tie, a unique exclamation
hanging around the fine neck,
hangs him up : and they say that the hanged
have an erection to be hanged on.

 

o gerente de gravata vermelha
adentra ao meiodia
as dependências do restaurante
no conjunto nacional.

o gerente de gravata vermelha
veste um risca-de-giz cinza frio,
cabelos laqueados cosa nostra
e um ar neutro, impecável.

as garotas conversando a seu lado
riem com lábios suculentos,
mas o jovem gerente de gravata vermelha
é um asceta do almoço:

separa com cuidado a carne
do osso : e sob as íris boiando
nos globos brancos
mantém a indiferença de metal.

magro, de cartaz ermenegildo zegna,
o polido gerente de gravata vermelha
é um estóico da mastigação.
comenta algo, sucinto e de lado,

e observa as mãos guiando os garfos.
o guardanapo cesura o labor
das mandíbulas; nenhum ardor
sublinha seu sorriso clerical.

a gravata vermelha, única exclamação,
pendurada no fino pescoço,
o enforca : e dizem que os enforcados
têm uma ereção.

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