It All Stays Here
Aloe on my face
papaya in my hair
one raw clove of garlic each morning
It all stays here
Daily rituals
cracks in the floor
Amen to my sick little face
Dirty dishes
unwashed clothes
I think about the world:
a hummingbird’s heart
Its structure
so wickedly tender
Water falling on plaster
and shabby structures of foreign glass
Through the walls
you can hear the neighbors
factories of noise and loneliness
Like me
so empty
no ice
in the freezer.
Todo se queda aqui
Sábila en la cara
papaya en el pelo
un ajo crudo en las mañanas
Todo se queda aquí
Rituales cotidianos
las franjas impares en el suelo
Amén por mi cara de náusea
Platos sucios
ropa por lavar
Pienso en el mundo:
corazón de colibrí
Y en su estructura
malvadamente tierna
Agua que cae sobre vasos de pasta
y estructuras ajadas de vidrio extranjero
A través de las paredes
se oyen los vecinos
fábricas de ruido y soledad
Como yo
tan vacía
y sin hielo
en el congelador.
I consider my fall from your name
“Today I’ve sought you and not found you
all through your strange city and mine
and I’ve not found you
How will I seek you in the distance.”
—Eunice Odio
I consider my fall from your name
a lovely object, but imaginary
if you only knew what I think when I imagine you
like an ancestral man perched
on the heart of the world
I don’t know if you’re fragile
but I want to hold you
like a miracle or
a sort of god with scraped knees
I want to shout, but only know how to pronounce
your name awkwardly
I wish to be vast enough
to get where you are
I wish to be everything your eyes touch
—To love is always so impossible for me—
I wish I could stop desiring
under this reality, so limited
stop seeming like someone who dreams
and cries over every little thing
so they know she loves them
I’m too much and it’s not your fault
I write because it’s all
I think I can do
and I speak your name again and again
like an amulet against fear.
And I name you and I speak you
with every voice I have
and I laugh you and dream you like a house of cards
or a leap of faith
I name you and feel blind and mute
I want to love you and name you
everywhere
in the flowers I gather along the path
in the reflection of people’s faces
in puddles, in cold weather
in my icy feet
in the letters and poems I still haven’t written you
in the trips we won’t take together
in tombstones, under umbrellas
in my labia, that smack of jellyfish
or flock of birds or patch of damp flowers
in sunflowerly sadness
in lunch at six p.m.
I name you and grow taciturn
feeling I’m in a broken dream
where I sit to write without pause
I grow old and later girlish
and you look me in the eye
as if you wanted to ask me.
Contemplo mi caída desde tu nombre
«Hoy te he buscado sin hallarte
por entre mi ciudad y tu ciudad extraña,
y no te he hallado.
Cómo será buscarte en la distancia».
—Eunice Odio
Contemplo mi caída desde tu nombre
que es un objeto hermoso pero imaginario
si supieras lo que pienso cuando te imagino
como un hombre ancestral sentado sobre el
corazón del mundo
No sé si eres frágil
pero te quiero sostener
como un milagro o
una especie de dios con las rodillas raspadas
Quiero gritar, pero sólo sé delinear
con torpeza tu nombre
deseo ser tan vasta
para llegar a donde estás
deseo ser todo lo que rozas con los ojos
—Amar siempre me es tan imposible—
deseo dejar de querer
bajo esta realidad tan limitada
dejar de parecer alguien que sueña
y llora sobre todas las cosas
para hacerles saber que las ama
Me desbordo y no es tu culpa
Escribo porque es lo único
que creo saber hacer
y digo tu nombre una y otra vez
como un amuleto que quita el miedo.
Y te nombro y te digo
con todas las voces que tengo
y te rio y te sueño como un edificio de cartas
o un salto al vacío
Te nombro y me siento ciega y muda
te quiero amar y te nombro
en todas las cosas
en las flores que recojo en el camino
en el reflejo de las caras de la gente
en los charcos, en el clima frío
en mis pies helados
en las cartas y poemas que aún no te escribo
en las vacaciones que no tendremos juntos
en las lápidas, en las sombrillas
en mi sexo que es una bandada de medusas
o de pájaros o de flores húmedas
en lo tornasolmente triste
en el almuerzo a las seis de la tarde
Te nombro y me hago taciturna
me siento en un sueño fragmentado
en el que me siento a escribir sin parar
Me hago vieja y luego niña
y me miras a los ojos
como si quisieras preguntarme.
Poem with Fever and Turbulence
I told you love, darling,
my heaven’s sick boy
pact with my gods
fingers crossed.
You were scared of my eyes
they look like hungry crows
they look like dying gods
In this nothingness where we find ourselves
hold my body like a hand
Because horror
is a multidimensional car not braking
and lullabies are a cleft in flesh
a wound in speech
Hold my body like a truth
trust me, don’t be scared
My jaw isn’t made of glass
it’s diamond
And in this poem
—child of our bodies—
words live within us
like kisses from combustive animals.
Poema con fiebre y turbulencia
Te dije amor, cariño niño
enfermo del cielo mío
pacto de mis dioses
y dedos cruzados.
Tenías miedo de mis ojos
que parecen cuervos hambrientos
que parecen un dios que va a morir
En esta nada en que nos encontramos
abraza mi cuerpo como a una mano
Porque el horror
es un auto multidimensional que no frena
y el arrullo es una oquedad en la carne
una herida en el habla
Abraza mi cuerpo como una verdad
confía, no temas
Mi quijada no es de cristal
es de diamante
Y en este poema
—hijo de nuestros cuerpos—
las palabras nos habitan
como besos de animales incendiarios.
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Daniela Prado (Colombia,1994) is a writer and multidisciplinary artist. She holds a Master’s degree in Editorial Production from UAEM Mexico and a degree in Literature from Universidad del Valle in Colombia. A creator of sensitive symbols, she explores image and language through her work in visual art, collage, and collage poetry with Recorte Secreto. She is the founder of Tristes Trópicos Editorial, a press dedicated to publishing the work of emerging women writers in Colombia and Latin America, and works with sound poetry through the project El azar de las formas. Prado also teaches workshops on creative writing and freelance editorial/graphic design. Her books of poetry include Espacios Habitables (Sic Semper Ediciones, 2019), Mujer Oblicua (Tristes Trópicos, 2019), Ya no soy esta carne trémula (Proteo Editorial, 2021), ¿Por qué lo bello resulta doloroso? (Editorial UniNorte, 2023), and the hypermedia book Mujer Oblicua (2025).
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Lizzie Fox is a writer, translator, and performer currently living in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Her work has been published in The Los Angeles Review, Denver Quarterly, Arkansas International, and elsewhere, and has been supported by the Rona Jaffe Foundation, the Bread Loaf Translators’ Conference, and the Carolyn F. Walton Cole Foundation. Lizzie recently performed in the Off-Broadway premiere of her translation of The Martyrdom, a Medieval Latin play by Hrotsvitha, the first-known female playwright. MFA: University of Arkansas.
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Jeannine Marie Pitas is a teacher, writer, and Spanish-English literary translator living in Pittsburgh, PA. She teaches at Saint Vincent College and is on staff at Eulalia Books, a small press dedicated to publishing Latin American authors appearing in English for the first time. She is excited to have two books in translation coming out in 2026: Chilean poet Úrsula Starke’s Wisteria, co-translated with Jesse Lee Kercheval and published by Diálogos Books, and Colombian poet Daniela Prado’s Espacios habitables, forthcoming under the title Sideways Woman in late 2026 from Lugar Común.
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Mary Tina Shamli Pillay is an abstract painter and writer based in India. Her art, poems, and fiction have featured on BBC Radio, Kitaab, The Mean Journal, Blink-Ink, Borderless Journal, The Chakkar, Madras Courier, The Pine Cone Review, The Literary Times Magazine, The Punch Magazine, Shooter Magazine, Ink In Thirds, Artist Talk magazine, The Hemlock Journal, The Penn Review, Chestnut Review, Inscape Journal, and Another Chicago Magazine, among others. Her art has been showcased at exhibitions and collected internationally. She is passionate about painting, writing, cats and food. Find her on Instagram @marytinashamlipillay.
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Another Chicago Magazine 