“Elizabeth Bishop: Petropolis, Brazil, 1952“: a poem by Blake Morrison

My toucan is flourishing, now he takes cold baths:
he plunges in as though he hates it but knows he must.
Once wet, his skin goes the colour of blueberries
or as if he’s wearing jeans. I’ve a cat now, too,
black with a white bib, perfect evening wear for the opera.
The house is under a cliff, and I’ve my own studio.
I am so high here, so high. Clouds spill over the mountains
like waterfalls in slow motion, then float into my bedroom.
No one can tell me what day it is, or even the time of year,
all I know is it’s the season of blue butterflies.
I am learning Portuguese, which is packed with diminutives –
buttonholes are buttonhouses. I’ve bought an MG,
with red leather seats, which my story in the New Yorker
will pay for once they stop demanding changes –
one tires of typing even a masterpiece.
The fireflies move with milky blue lights, like distant trains.
We go to bed at 9.30 and read, surrounded by oil-lamps.
Apart from my asthma, and an allergy to cashews,
I feel better than I have for years. I know it’s a cliché
but Brazilians really are (which I love them for) crazy.

This poem, part of a longer sequence, is a collage of words and images that Elizabeth Bishop used in her letters. Blake Morrison and Ali Smith will discuss Bishop’s time in Brazil at the Cambridge Literary Festival on 5 April (cambridgeliteraryfestival.com; 01223 300 085).