Emigrant

Every afternoon/evening the sunset [poente] folds
    your thumb [polegar] over the island
And from the sunset to the thumb
    grows
    a progress of dead stone
That the Peninsula
        Still drinks
In the cup of the colony [‘colonia’ is also a kind of tenant-farmer / landlord contract]
All the blood of your pilgrim body

But when (that) your voice
    Will be / Should be a wave on the guitar of the beach
And the earth of the face And the face of the earth
    Holds out the palm of the hand
Of/from the maritime fringe/edge of the island
    Of/from bread & bread made [ie. palm of hand is made of all these things above]
You will bring together the last hunger
    to your first hunger

From above / on-high will come
faces-and-prows-of-not-voyage
    so herb so mercuro [can’t find an explanation of this – my guess is mercurio – mercury]
Tears/Rips the crosses from your body
The cry/shout of (the) mothers takes you
                Now

To the seventh corner
        where the island is shipwrecked
        where the island celebrates/parties
Your pain of a daughter
And your pain of a parturient woman [parturiente]
That the whole / all departure [partida] Is potency in death
    the whole / all return Is infancy that spells [ie. spells out, letter by letter]

We already don’t [ie. We no longer) wait for / expect (the) metabolism
     Pap/pulp [polme] of good fruit fruit of good pulp [polpa]
     The earth
    inhales
        your green [falo = phallus, but also related to ‘speech’]

And before your foot
    is [should be – subjunctive]
[a] tree on the hill

And your hand
    Sing[s]
        [a] new moon in my belly

Go And plant
    in the mouth of dead Amílcar [Amilcar Cabral, nationalist politician assassinated in ’73?]
This fistful of watercress
And resolve/explain from goal to goal
    a phonetics of freshness
And with the commas of the street/road
         With the syllables from door to door
You will sweep before the night
The paths that go
    to [as far as] the nocturnal schools
That the whole / all departure is an alphabet that grows
        the whole / all return is a nation that spells [as above]

Await you [subject follows]
    the dogs and the piglets
    from/of the house of Chota
    which in the yard become thin from morabeza [this is a CV word for a special ‘warm welcome’ – national characteristic they’re proud of]

Await you
    the cups And the semantics of taverns

Await you
    the animals/brutes/beasts
    gagging on applause and sugar cane

Await you
    the faces that explode
    in/on the blood of the ants
    new fields of pastoral

But
    when your body
        blood & lignite of pure heat [as in ‘on heat’ – rut]
Raises
    Over the cornfield / harvest
Your pain
And your orgasm
        Who didn’t know [this is preterite, so finite – who didn’t learn / find out]
        Who doesn’t know
            Emigrant
That the whole / all departure Is potency in death
And the whole / all return Is infancy that spells [as above]