219

By Ricardo Reis

Translated By Margaret Jull Costa & Patricio Ferrari

Translated from the Portuguese

13 November 1935

Inside us live innumerable others;

If I think or feel, I do not know

Who is thinking or feeling.

I am only the place

Where feeling and thinking happen.

I have more than one soul.

There are more I’s than just I myself.

And yet I remain completely

Indifferent to them all.

I silence them: I speak.

The crisscrossing impulses

Of what I feel and don’t feel

Argue inside the person I am.

I ignore them. They dictate nothing

To the me I know I am: I write.

Notes:

Translation copyright: Copyright (c) 2026 by Margaret Jull Costa and Patricio Ferrari. Used by permission of New Directions.

Read the translator's note by Margaret Jull Costa and Patricio Ferrari.

Source: Poetry (January/February 2026)