Born in Argentina, Florencia Milito spent her early childhood in Venezuela and has lived in the U.S. since she was nine. She is a bilingual poet, essayist, and translator whose work has appeared and is forthcoming, in ZYZZYVA; Indiana Review; Catamaran; Entremares; Digging through the Fat; Diálogo; 92nd Street Y; Kenyon Review; and Latina Voices, Protest, and Struggle in 21st Century USA.
Florencia is a Hedgebrook alumna, CantoMundo fellow, and Grotto fellow. Her book of poems "Ituzaingo; Exiles and Reveries" was published in 2021 by Nomadic Press.
Sor Juana
Mexico, 1694
Dear Reader,
watch the Inquisition
on horseback
galloping after our poet,
who, weighed down by her habits,
arrives at an abandoned Carnival,
seeks refuge in the Hall of Mirrors,
but instead of her reflection
sees a headless Hypatia,
driving her red chariot
around and around.
Only a thin sheet of glass
separates the two,
and Sor Juana is dizzied
by the spinning.
-
It had been raining for days
that summer like a tantrum,
flooding the city,
ruining the crops.
The people spoke
of strange white-eyed birds.
At dawn, the sky a sliver of apricot,
roaming the garden
of the convent,
her heart fluttering:
miedo, miedo
her drenched robes tight
against her breasts,
she sees a fallen fledgling
under the purple jacaranda.
Featherless, translucent,
its beak so yellow
it seems painted on,
its tiny neck broken—
she reads her fate
in the delicate ink
of its veins.