Nicholas

Patron saint of children, sailors and the poor

Nicholas (270 – 343 AD) was born in the third century in the region of Lycia. At that time, the area was Greek but is now called Demre, situated on the southern coast of Turkey. He was made Bishop of Myra – the metropolis of Lycia – while still young. The oldest source of his life is the Praxis de stratelatis – written around 337 – which can be translated as ‘the officers’ adventure.’

The Greek bishop became known for his generosity, his love for children and his concern of sailors. He died on the 6th of December, 336 AD in Myra and was buried in his cathedral church. In 1087 – due to war in the area- concerned Christians moved his relics to Bari, a seaport on the southeast coast of Italy, where they are kept in the Basilica di San Nicola.

Throughout the centuries, many legends have been told about him. One miracle story tells about a poor man with three daughters. In those days, a young woman’s father had to offer prospective husbands something of value to offer, a dowry.

To save the girls from being sold into servitude, St Nicholas tossed three bags of gold into the shoes of the daughters – left before the fire to dry – providing the desperately needed dowries. This led to the custom of children putting out their shoes, eagerly awaiting gifts from St Nicholas.

Another legend tells of three students travelling to Athens. A wicked innkeeper robbed and murdered them, preserving their remains in brine. Nicholas, traveling along the same route, dreamed of the crime and prayed to God to return them to life.

Elsewhere, the story is told about three small children who were lost, lured and killed by an evil butcher. St Nicholas appeared and prayed to God to restore them to life. This made St Nicholas the patron and protector of students and children.

One of the stories about St Nicholas and the sea goes as follows. Returning by sea – after making a pilgrimage to the Holy Land – a mighty storm threatened to wreck the ship. Nicholas prayed. The terrified sailors were amazed when the wind and waves suddenly calmed, sparing them all. That’s why St Nicholas also became the patron saint of sailors and travellers.

Other stories mention Nicholas saving people from famine and saving lives of innocent people from unjust execution.
Within a century of his death, he was celebrated as a saint.

As his popularity spread during the Middle Ages, thousands of churches in Europe were named after him, including 22 in Portugal. The São Nicolau church in Lisbon was built between 1209 and 1229 and is located in the Baixa, between the Rua da Prata and de Rua dos Douradores.

The anniversary of his death – on December 6th – is widely celebrated in Europe. In the Netherlands, Sinterklaas ‘arrives’ each year in mid-November on a steamboat from Spain and rides on a white horse. An elderly man with white hair and a long beard. He wears a long red cape, dons a red mitre and holds a long ceremonial shepard’s staff with a fancy curled top.

In the weeks before the 6th of December, he is said to ride his horse over rooftops at night, delivering presents through the chimney to the well-behaved children. Overnight, Dutch children leave carrots and apples in their shoes for the saint’s horse, hoping the good saint will exchange them for sweets or small gifts.

On December 5th – the eve of the feast day – St Nicholas is celebrated by sharing candies (thrown into the living room), chocolate initial letters, surprise gifts with humorous rhymes and Sinterklaas songs. Parents and family ‘fool’ the children into thinking that Sinterklaas has really given them presents

In the 1600s, Dutch settlers brought ‘Sinterklaas’ to New Amsterdam (nowadays New York), linguistically evolving into ‘Santa Claus.’ Although connected, they are not the same figure.

Santa Claus ( also known as Santa) is a modern, mythical secular evolution of the historical Christian saint, appearing in American print by the late 1700s.
A plump, joyful, nocturnal gift-bringer with a deep, hearty laugh, depicted in a fur-rimmed red suit and a red hat, who flies over rooftops in a sleigh pulled by eight reindeer and bringing presents on Christmas Eve.
Also in Portugal, but then as Pai Natal (Father Christmas).


Boas Festas                                                                Happy Holidays  


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Habitation

Today, Lisbon tops Europe’s housing unaffordability ranking

Unaffordable house prices and rents are a continent-wide concern. Over the past decade, house prices in the EU rose by 50% on average, and rents by 18%. Housing policy has favoured those who invest in homes at the cost of those who live in them. Across Europe, property has become a driving force of inequality.

During that same period, Lisbon has undergone a dramatic transformation, from one of the most affordable capitals in Europe to one of the most unaffordable. House prices rose by more than 200% in its central historical district. This trend is extending to the national level. In 2015, Portugal ranked 22nd out of 27 EU countries for housing unaffordability. Today it ranks first!

To understand how Lisbon reached this point, we have to go back to the 2008 global financial crisis, after which the country embraced a strategy of aggressive liberalization, in order to entice foreign real estate investment.

Rental laws were relaxed, making evictions easier and tenancy agreements shorter. Generous tax-incentives were introduced for non-resident buyers, including the controversial ‘golden visa’ and ‘non-habitual resident’ programmes.  At the same time, both the hotel industry and the short-term rental sector were promoted.

In the historic centre of Lisbon, Airbnb rentals have reached dramatic levels: half of all homes hold a short-term licence, and in the most tourist-saturated neighbourhoods, that figure even climbs to 70%.

When measured against the city population, this number represents a density 6 times higher than in Barcelona and 3 times higher than in London. Meanwhile, the number of hotels has tripled – from around 100 to 300 – and there already exist approved plans for 50 more.    

These changes happened in a global context of low interest rates in which affluent people increasingly turned to housing as a place to park their savings. Storing of wealth in housing drives up prices; the medium of transactions made by foreign buyers in Lisbon is 80% higher than the price paid by domestic buyers, whereas the country stands out for its overvaluation of house prices by 35%.

The result is a city that welcomes foreign wealth but excludes many of its own citizens, prioritizing the desires of the global consumers over the needs of the local community. Beyond an increasing number of tourists, central Lisbon is now primarily occupied by a transnational class of mobile young professionals and digital nomads from other countries, whereas local middle-class people are being pushed out to the suburbs or forced to adapt by renting rooms instead of apartments.

At the same time, a growing share of the income – half of the Portuguese taxpayers earn less than 1000 euros a month – is being consumed by housing costs, deepening social inequality. Citizens in Lisbon spend the highest percentage of their salary on housing in the EU.

Contrary to the neoliberal myth that the market alone can meet the needs of the population, Lisbon offers another example of market failure, dividing society and fuelling the popularity of far-right parties like Chega.
‘ We’re running the risk of having the working and middle classes conclude that their democracies are incapable of solving their biggest problem,’ the mayor of Barcelona recently declared.

Happy reading                      Boas leituras                (Pic PtRes/Lusa)

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Healthservice

Health Services disease: easy diagnosis, difficult treatment

Is the National Health Service still sustainable?
60% of private deliveries are by Caesarean section, twice as many as in the SNS.
43 public hospitals on the brink of collapse.
More than two thousand family doctors are out of the SNS.
Health Centres lack almost everything.
Public hospitals suffer from ‘persistent underfunding.’

Centre-right government doesn’t want doctors to be hired by private agencies.
More than half of SNS doctors also work in the private sector.
The vast majority of foreign doctors are working in the private sector.
Private hospitals break records with over 10 million consultations per year.

Mother loses baby after visiting five hospitals.
Infant mortality increasing in Portugal.
Infant mortality peaking since 2019. Unguarded pregnancies may explain.
Why do SNS professionals run away?

2,700 doctors leave Portugal for abroad.
In Portugal most people die in hospital, relatively few at home.
Portuguese medical specialists are among the lowest paid in Europe.
Health workers are depressed.

Number of nursing graduates below the EU average.
Order of Nurses warns of the ‘escape’ of nursing professionals from Portugal.
No progress in nursing careers.
Almost 1 million waiting for hospital appointments.
Over 7500 victims of cancer await critical surgeries.

Diagnosing the evils of the SNS (National Health Service) in Portugal is easy because the holes are in plain sight. The SNS used to be outstanding when created almost fifty years ago. Although it still maintains some excellent services, it has been degrading for not having adapted to a different society, states professor António Sarmento in the newspaper Expresso.

The price of health care has increased exponentially as a result of medical progress with technical and pharmacological innovations, many of which without a clearly demonstrated cost-benefit advantage.

There is an increasing stimulus to consumption in health care whose main focus is profit, as if health were a commercial activity. To enhance this demand for health care are the exaggerated expectations in the possibilities of Medicine.

It is unacceptable that private clinics try to condition the salary of doctors to the number of tests requested. There are even clinics announcing the offer of free radiographs as a gift for procedures performed.  

But are public hospitals a paradise of ethics and virtue? Of course not. It is enough to look carefully at the perversion of some programs of the so-called additional production in some hospitals or at the administrative pressure that threatens good medical practice and demotivates the professionals.

What will be the solution? There seems to be only one way: a structural reform of the SNS, facing it as an imperative of national interest. There are general principles underlying any global reform of the health system

Health cannot be a business case like selling cars, apartments or commodities. Its merely commercial essence cannot be accepted, reducing health to a consumer good and the patient to a customer

There is only one Medicine: the one centred on people!

Promotion of health literacy should be based on Science, including universal concepts of dignity, compassion and beneficence, not forgetting respect of those who take care of others.

Cooperation with Public Health Services of the EU member states is warranted for the solution of problems that are common to all.

It is high time the country finds financing mechanisms that allow sustainable, accessible and equitable health for all.

Enjoy your week          Aproveite a sua semana               (Pic Público/PtRes)







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Local-elections

Driving issues in the local elections were housing, public health and education

Portugal’s far-right, xenophobic, nationalist and biggest party in the country Chega (‘Enough’) – defending the reduction of state intervention in the economy, promoting stricter immigration, supporting chemical castration for child abusers and incessantly attacking the Roma population – has won its first three mayoral seats in municipal elections on Sunday, the 12th of October.
But fell well short of expectations as its vote share halved from Parliamentary elections in May.

Of the merely three municipalities it captured, it won 49% of the vote in São Vicente (Madeira), 40,5% in Albufeira (Algarve) – which its leader André Ventura has called ‘the party’s stronghold’, and the springboard for Portugal’s ‘conquest’ by the far right – and 37% in Entroncamento (Tagus Valley).

The ruling centre-right Social Democratic party (PSD) – focusing on liberalising the economy and associated with conservative values – won the largest share of mayoral races, capturing 136, including the country’s five biggest cities – Lisbon, Porto, Gaia, Sintra and Cascais – up from 114 four years ago.

Together with the more conservative Christian Democratic party (CDS) – with six elected mayors on his own list – it has formed the Democratic Alliance (AD), which is governing the country since last spring.

The PSD ‘victory’ also means the party wins control of both national municipal associations, ANAFRE – the association of parish councils – and ANMP, the association of municipalities, which fell to PS Socialists over a decade ago.

‘This is very relevant’, Prime Minister Luís Montenegro declared. ‘The party now has more parish council presidents, more city council presidents and achieved historic victories in the country’s five largest municipalities, while leading the two autonomous regions (Azores and Madeira) and having a majority in parliament.’

Its centre-left Socialist (PS ) rivals – defending State intervention in the economy to improve social justice – won 128 (22 down compared to four years ago) of the total of 308 municipalities in the country and is no longer the most voted party in the local elections. But the party is pleased, for reversing the awful general elections result of last May.

Voters in Lisbon returned to the incumbent mayor – Carlos Moedas, heading a centre-right coalition – less than six weeks after a deadly funicular crash that killed 16 people, including 11 tourists, and caused a national outcry. Moedas, a rising star in the PSD, has rejected blame for the 3 September accident – most likely a break in the cable linking the two carriages – and refused to resign.
He scored 42% against 34% for the Socialist (PS) candidate Alexandra Leitão.

After three national elections in the past two years, Portuguese voters will again return to the polls next January for a presidential vote.

Enjoy your week         Aproveite a sua semana      (Pic Público/Sapo)


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Orcas

Orcas sinking boats: annoyed or just playing?

Orcas are known for two things: being very intelligent and being very ruthless.
Last month, new incidents with orcas led to the sinking of a sailing boat just off Costa de Caparica (Lisbon) and damaging boats in Cascais Bay. It is the third boat sinking after confrontations with orcas

The first boat to sink in Portuguese waters was a sailing boat of a French family off the coast near Sines in 2022. Later that same year, another boat involving orcas sank off the coast of Viana do Castelo (Northern Portugal).

Violent interactions with killer whales on the Portuguese coast started around the time of Covid. In September 2021, a sailing boat off the coast of Faro and two more boats between Lagos and Sagres (Algarve) were heavily damaged. And only very recently, five crewmembers had to be rescued from the sea after their vessel lost its rudder following an orca attack off Peniche (Leiria district).

It looks like encounters between sailboats and orcas are becoming increasingly frequent. Since the beginning of this year, about 60 interactions have been recorded, six of them in the last two weeks of September.

This particular group of Iberian orcas is labelled ‘the killer whales of the Strait of Gibraltar’, although they regularly travel along the Atlantic coast, up to the Bay of Biscay (France), and back again. It is a group largely made up of juveniles hitting the hull and the rudder, which usually continues for around twenty minutes.

Although known as killer whales, orcas are not whales. The species Orcinus orca is part of the dolphin family and can measure up to eight metres. This behaviour of ramming vessels probably started with individual orcas, but seems to have spread through social learning.

The Orcinus orca subpopulation – not reaching half a hundred animals – was in 2019 classified as Critically Endangered on the ICNF  (International Union for Conservation of Nature) Red List of threatened species.

The reason for the ‘disruptive behaviour’ of the orcas is unclear. According to ICNF biologist Élio Vicente orcas see the ‘rudders as toys. It’s a mobile, it makes noise, and it attracks curiosity. It is not a negative behaviour from their point of view.’ Researcher Rui Rosa emphasises that the people on board never seem to be targeted. ‘The risk around orcas is more of a navigation concern than a direct danger to human life.’

The recurrence of these episodes is already generating economic impact. Fernando Sá, owner of a nautical school in the Lisbon area – explains that he has stopped authorizing tours to the Tagus river mouth for fear of new incidents.
‘The orcas might look at it as a joke, for the people on board it is not.’   


Enjoy the week                     Aproveite a semana      (pic Lusa/Público)




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Hambúrger

Lost in translation: hamburgers instead of citizens

Last week CHEGA leader André Ventura and his party voted against President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa’s request to travel to Berlin for an official visit, including participation in the city’s Bürgerfest.


Although other parties saw no harm in the visit, Ventura stated in Parliament: ‘You are approving a trip by the Head of State to Germany to go to a hamburger festival! Paid for with our taxes! He later told his followers on social media: ‘Do you think this is normal? Won’t the Portuguese people revolt?’

In the firm belief that this is a festival of hamburgers, he continued: ‘CHEGA voted against this, that’s evident. This is a disgrace! But you know why these things happen, don’t you? Because no one tells you about them. You don’t revolt because you don’t know. Tell me how ridiculous this is. How stupid it is.’

It didn’t take long for people to understand that Ventura was lost in translation, as Bürgerfest has nothing to do with hamburgers. Bürger in German means citizen, and the Bürgerfest is a 2-day Citizens Festival, held in the gardens of the President of Germany.

It is surprising that none of the 60 deputies of CHEGA (and the rest of advisors who accompany them, paid with tax money) took care to find out what was at stake before voting. Even the official website of the Portuguese President explains very clear, that Marcelo de Sousa is going to the event ‘to honour volunteer work, and promote civic involvement.’   

After admitting his hilarious mistake and removing his post on X, the leader of his right-wing party CHEGA attacked the President soon after with another falsehood, claiming that ‘this President has already made 1,550 trips abroad at the expense of taxpayers.’

‘But you journalists are only worried about whether it’s hamburgers or citizenship,’ he complained against news channel SIC Notícias. In reality, the President made about ten times less trips (i.e. 155) in the past ten years!

A recent poll for the newspaper Diário de Notícias has put CHEGA in the lead in Portugal for the very first time, with 26.8% of the vote – 4% more than in the last May elections – compared to the 25.9% polled by the government coalition AD, who lost almost 6%.

Taken with the margin of error in mind, the three largest parties (Chega, AD and PS) are in a technical tie.
Despite his gaffes and ‘deliberate mistakes’, the traditional political parties are apparently unable to keep the far-right André Ventura down.

Enjoy the week            Aproveite a semana               (Pic Ptres/Público)

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Wildfires

‘Why work to see everything burned?’

‘A person is always thinking,’ says António Barroso from Piódão, who doesn’t want to leave the land where fruit trees used to grow around the house. The fire burned everything, but his house was miraculously spared. ‘The house is all I have and the profit of a lifetime. Except that, I’am a little stubborn,’ he adds with a wry smile.

For more than a month, a practically uncontrollable wave of wildfires has so far consumed more than 270,000 hectares (3% of the Portuguese territory) of rural and forest areas; 65,000 of which have been devastated in the enormous fire, that started in Piódão – in the municipality of Arganil (Coimbra district) – now considered to be the largest wildfire ever in the country.

According to the Institute of Nature and Forest Conservation (ICNF), 34,000 hectares (4,6% of the network of protected areas) with special ecological value have already been burned down this year. Most affected are the Serra da Estrella Natural Park (10,7%), followed by Peneda-Gerês National Park (9,2%). and the Douro International Natural Park (8,4%).

A human drama for the populations that have to face the fires without much help. It is also an environmental disaster – pumping out over 37m tonnes of carbon dioxide, nearly as much as the yearly CO2 emissions of the country – and an economic tragedy, with many millions of euros in losses and a lot of biodiversity destroyed.

And again, Pedrógão Grande was not spared – the municipality known for the highest loss of human lives in a single fire in Portugal’s recent history. In 2017, 66 people died, and lots of homes and businesses were destroyed when wildfires devastated the region. Firefighters, residents and landowners are back in a place that haunts the collective psyche.  

‘We know that large fires foster larger fires in the future. When the vegetation recovers, it grows simultaneously, and will produce an increasingly homogeneous continuum of vegetation – and if there is one thing fires like, it’s this homogeneity, explains Paulo Fernandes, a fire expert and researcher from the University of Trás-os-Montes.

Although the number of deaths – 4 people so far – cannot be compared to 2017, the burned land across the country is, up to now, the largest in the EU!

A great number of fires is believed to be caused by arsonists. Carlos Farinha, deputy national director of the Polícia Judiciária, stated to SIC Notícias, that time in prison should be increased since most of the detainees this year have already been caught in the past for the same crime.

The centre-right government of Luis Montenegro is criticized for the way it has been dealing with the fires. There seems to be a structural discoordination, both on the ground and in commands at the highest level.
The joint opposition parties have asked for a Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry into the fires and demand that Maria Lúcia Amaral, the Minister of Home Affairs, resigns from her position.

Enjoy your week          Aproveite a sua semana      (pic Público/Ptnews)

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Flamingos

Portugal boasts ten official nature reserves

The best places to find flamingos in Portugal is in the Algarve. While flamingos usually do not breed there, they make a stop in the wetlands of Portugal. Throughout the year, they can be seen in the Ria Formosa Natural Park – the impressive wetland spanning over 60 kilometres along the coast between the beaches of Garrão and Manta Rota.

However, the best time to spot them is between November and March. Breeding season takes place between March and July.

The Greater Flamingo – which is the species usually found in the region – prefers to feed in mudflats and shallow lagoons with salt water. These birds use their long legs and webbed feet to stir up the mud and water, creating a muddy soup that they filter through their uniquely adapted bills, which are specially designed to filter out small shrimp, molluscs, seeds, and algae.

As of 2021, the Algarve saw a group of flamingos successfully establish a colony, resulting in the birth of 550 chicks, making it the first successful nesting in the country. The colony began in one of the saltpans of the Castro Marim and Vila Real de Santo António Natural Reserve, located at the mouth of the Guadiana River, bordering Spain.

Although the event hasn’t repeated, the National Forest and Nature Conservation Institute (ICNF) investigates ways to encourage nesting again. ‘It was an atypical year’, explains João Alves, biologist at ICNF. ‘Nature tourism was restricted because of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the area where they nested became much more quiet. ‘Remember that flamingos nest in colonies’, he added.

This protected area – spanning over 2,300 hectares – is Portugal’s oldest natural reserve, created 50 years ago. The establishment of the reserve also prompted traditional salt workers to form a cooperative, boosting economic activity in the area. What once was a neglected stretch of salt marches and brackish lagoons is today a thriving habitat, visited by thousands of nature lovers each year.

Except a sanctuary for flamingos, the area is home to over 200 bird species, such as Avocets, Black -winged stilts, Audouin’s gulls, spoonbills and Kentish plovers. Meanwhile, across the border in Spain, Doñana National Park – one of Europe’s most iconic wetlands – is suffering under prolonged drought, giving rise to an unexpected influx of Spanish nature tourists visiting Castro Marim.  

Another significant wetland where pink-feathered flamingos can be admired is the Tagus Estuary, situated near Lisbon, and a vital stopover for migratory birds.

The nearby Sado Estuary, located in the Setubal district, is above all famous for its white storks (and of course dolphins).


Enjoy your week                   Aproveite a semana      (pic Ptres/Público)

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Reopening?

Citizen initiative advocates reopening of the ‘Museum of the Art of the Sick‘

The Lisbon Municipal Assembly recently recommended the City Council to intensify negotiations with the Government for a reopening of the Museum of the Art of the Sick at the former psychiatric hospital Miguel Bombarda, following a petition from the Lx Citizenship Forum.

‘It is a special space that shows the richness of the first Portuguese psychiatric hospital, says one of the petitioners Pedro Janarra, calling for the reopening of the museum in the Security Pavilion – known as the Panopticon – where patients were held who had committed a crime. Inaugurated in 1848, the Miguel Bombarda hospital has been closed since 2011.

The representative of the Citizenship Forum explains that the Panoptic is unique in the world and highlights the presence of ‘more than 15,000 pieces’ of the former psychiatric hospital, with a set of 518 objects in the process of classification to which are added 2400 photographs and manuscripts, as well as an inventory of 18th century tiles in the Noble Hall (Salão Nobre).

It is the third petition of the Forum for the reopening of the museum, with the first being presented in 2014 and the second in 2023, indicated municipal deputy Daniela Serralha, responsible for the civic participation initiative.

Indicating that the former hospital is under patrimonial supervision of the public company Estamo – which took ‘almost a year’ to respond to the request of the Municipal Assembly to visit this public property, finally happening last October – Daniella Serralha states that ‘the allocation of this cultural heritage is planned for housing to affordable rents, including areas of cultural nature.’   


The independent deputy of Citizens For Lisboa (Cidadãos Por Lisboa) adds that it is expected that the Panopticon will be delivered to the City Council ‘with the condition of getting a cultural destination.’ In this regard Daniela Serralha asked the Council for urgency and that pressure be exerted on Estamo to ensure the preservation and maintenance of the heritage.

For his part, deputy Sobreda Antunes of the Ecosocialist party ‘The Greens’ (PEV) warned that ‘given the evident continued disinterest of Estamo, the most predictable will be that the museum and hospital grounds will continue to be abandoned and degrade until it is transformed into any ultra-luxurious hotel unit.’

Enjoy your week                   Aproveite a semana               (pic Público/Sapo)

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Childabuse

Violent crimes against children highest ever

From sexual abuse to grooming, through pornography, rape and sharing of intimate images and harassment: reported sex crimes against children increased almost 50% in a period of three years (2022 – 2024), to a total of more than 5000 crimes, according to the Portuguese Victim Support Association (APAV).

Of these minor victims, 60% were female, and the average age was 11-17 years. In most cases, the father or the mother assume the role of aggressor

‘We are also receiving more cries for help directly coming from children related to sexual violation, in particular online – ranging from cyberbullying and dating violence to the sharing of intimate photos and videos, followed by attempted extortion’ – told Carla Ferreira, technical advisor of APAV, to the daily newspaper Público.

‘The mitigation of risks, obtained when use of smartphones is going to be banned in children under 16 years of age  – as requested in a petition to Parliament –  won’t prevent the child from accessing content to the Internet’, Ferreira explains. ‘The forbidden fruit is always the most desired, especially at these ages,’ she adds.

Although principles of schools – where the use of smartphones is prohibited – report a substantial decrease in the cases of indiscipline and bullying

In its latest Annual Report, APAV reveals that sexual abuse of children, rape and pornography were the ones that registered the highest numbers in 2024.
In sexual abuse the increase was 38%, in rape 20% and in the case of child pornography 14%. Sex crimes were mostly perpetrated by men, either family members or acquaintances of the victim.

Similar figures were released by the National Institute of Health (INE), which in 2024 recorded 3237 violent crimes against children and minors, the highest number ever. Sexual abuse and domestic violence accounted for 32% and 33%, respectively. Men were the ones who committed most crimes, of sexual abuse (94%) and domestic violence (58%).

The good news is that a new risk assessment form for domestic violence is going to include children, that is, the questions that the police officer asks a victim will now include questions aimed at estimating the risk that minors may incur, in addition to the victim.

But, although the new form has already been approved by the Government, it is not yet published in the Diário de República and therefore not officially in force.

Lips
Her face tight of sadness,
without a crease. Her teeth
almost never seen (small as
baby teeth, and just as white). Her mouth
always shut, always fear
in her silence. Someone told that,

one day, a man – her father or her brother,
I don’t know any more – by force had opened
her lips. The other.

Maria do Rosário Pedreira
From her collection: O meu corpo humano (Quetzal, 2022)

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