Cristiane Sobral, “I Won’t Wash the Dishes Anymore”

I won’t wash the dishes anymore
Or dust the furniture
I’m sorry
I’ve begun to read
The other day I opened a book and a week later I decided
I won’t carry the trash out to the trash bin
Or clean up the mess of leaves falling in the yard
I’m sorry
After reading I noticed each dish has its own aesthetic,
an aesthetic of traces, of ethics, of static
I look at my hands as they flip the books’ pages
Hands much softer than they were before
I feel that I can start to be all the time

Cristiane Sobral
translated from the Portuguese by John Keene

from Words Without Borders, December 2018: Afro-Brazilian Writing