Um poema, um sorriso... um espelho

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First Love - Charles Bukowski

At one time
when I was 16
a few writers gave me
my only hope and
chance.

my father disliked
books and
my mother disliked
books (because my father
disliked books)
especially those I brought back
from the library:
D.H. Lawrence
Dostoevsky
Turgenev
Gorky
A. Huxley
Sinclair Lewis
others.

I had my own bedroom
but at 8 p.m.
we were all supposed to go to sleep:
“Early to bed and early to rise
makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise,”
my father would say.

“LIGHTS OUT!” he would shout.

then I would take the bed lamp
place it under the covers
and with the heat and hidden light
I would continue to read:
Ibsen
Shakespeare
Chekov
Jeffers
Thurber
Conrad Aiken
others.

they gave me a chance and some hope
in a place of no chance
no hope, no feeling.

I worked for it.
it got hot under the covers.
sometimes the sheets would begin to smoke
then I’d switch the lamp off,
hold it outside to
cool off.

without those books
I’m not quite sure
how I would have turned
out:
raving; the
murderer of the father;
idiocy;
hopelessness.

when my father shouted
“LIGHTS OUT!”
I’m sure he feared
the well-written word
immortalized
forever
in our best and
most interesting
literature.

and it was there
for me
close to me
under the covers
more woman than woman
more man than man.

I had it all
and
I took it.