This isn't the first time José Luís Peixoto has used a house as the center of his metaphor, in this case his mother's, where the poetic self looks toward the past, while the mother stares fixedly into the future, or rather, into nothingness. Composed of seven poetic seasons, The House, the Darkness revolves between memory and fiction, between murmur and silence, between fire and night, between life and death. More than a construction, it is an anatomy that the author traverses when he evokes his mother, for he recalls the nakedness of her fingers, her breathing like a morning breathing, or how her lips slowly awaken. In this book of poetry, the journey through the extremities of a house or a city is the best way to inhabit many encounters with the same person, a woman who is memory, reflection, but also final. Time, the work of a writer who watches himself write, death, and love are the nooks and crannies, the forgotten paintings, the weight of books in one's hands, the attics and lofts, the stairs, the corridor, and the pantries that Peixoto traverses to say, finally, you're back. I smiled so much. I was happy, and in that moment, I died.