Contemporary World Literature  Poetry from Mexico

Three Poems By Daniela Sánchez

Daniela Sánchez (Mexico City, 1998) studies Literature and Creative Writing in the University of the Cloister of Sor Juana (Universidad del Claustro de Sor Juana) in Mexico City. She also is studying engineering in innovation and design in the Panamerican University (Universidad Panamericana). She participated, as a writer, in the 2018 version of the Microfictions of the University of the Cloister of Sor Juana. In 2019; she coursed a diploma course in European Contemporary Literature in the Center of Literary Creation Xavier Villaurrutia. Currently, she is a Poetry editor and chief of translation in Cardenal Revista Literaria.

Sun was about to set

The Sun was about to set,

On the point of setting,

But, regretful,

She got one hand out from her wide shelter,

And then the other

Maybe she saw you,

Or she just had one moment of insecurity

But she got up and ran,

Upstairs, towards the right,

Towards whatever side she could.

 

Now she makes believe,

With me, with you,

That neither of us knows endings

That sunset never occur

That the world is made of sunrises

And words are never painted purple.

Tell me a lie

Tell me, Fortune, when the world fails,

And when death turns itself into an open invitation for dinner,

Who can I reach?

Whose hand can I take?

 

I can’t hold the hand

From the man with a gown as white as his beard

Maybe the cards have more answers than he has.

I can’t, either, hold his cousin’s hand

He has a bloody beard and thorns instead of laurel.

Maybe I could ask the stars

They have already shaped my soul,

They have defined me in three parts.

Someday, maybe, they could tell me

How are they going to define me in the future.

 

If only I could hold my father’s hand,

But his world is as crooked as mine,

And he, just like me, doesn’t know how to fix it.

Someday we will look for, Fortune, some glue,

We could paste the pieces together with some theory,

Even though tomorrow it’ll fall again

 

If I stand on my head,

Could I delay, just a little, the last candle I will ever blow?

Tell me, Fortune, if I break you, if I crush your flour crust,

Could you tell me a secret?

One that will be mine, and mine only,

Tell me a lie, Fortune,

Tell me you know the future,

And that it is mine.

Just one letter

I’m just one letter,

One that has been written once and many times,

I wish I could be the letter a

I could be a rounder letter,

A more useful, a more comfortable one

 

But, I am not.

I’m an unpronounceable letter,

Located between a silent u

And an uncomfortable dieresis

Maybe it’s my fault,

I spent too much time looking at the stars

On the blank page,

I spent too much space looking for

The future tense on verbs,

Now, I’m lost, I never got to follow the others.

I’m just a tiny letter,

One that can be erased

With an eraser, with liquid paper,

I can be changed, I can be misspelled,

But, even the smallest of letters

Can complete the alphabet

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