When I was a child, my father,
voice of cedar,
called me to him.
“I have three pieces of advice:
don’t talk to strange men,
don’t walk along dark streets,
don’t lose your heart.”
I remember that in the park,
I’d catch my breath
when I saw the face of a man.
My alarm increased if he smiled.
I’d retreat, step by small step,
feeling his long-legged eyes
on my back.
But with the passing of time,
almost without realizing,
men stopped seeming
sinister.
There was a mystery inside them
and I desired it.
So I forgot my father’s first piece of advice.
Then came the deaths.
A cellist stabbed at break of day,
whole neighborhoods orphaned,
only visited in Facebook rumors.
The streets gushed broken dyestuff.
Houses became fortresses.
With regret, I followed my father’s second piece of advice.
With my heart, it was different.
I’d lose it to the false eyes of butterflies,
to stray dogs, to losers,
to the heroes of books.
Then came the friends
and the strange men
I should never speak to.
Little by little,
I forgot that I shouldn’t lose my heart.
And now there’s no going back, and it’s hard
and beautiful,
like snow breaking the skin.
I watch my daughter playing in the park,
the way she consoles a boy
who’s whimpering after falling from the swing.
Don’t talk to strange men.
Don’t walk along dark streets.
Don’t lose your heart.
Sylvia Georgina Estrada (Monterrey, Mexico) is a writer, cultural journalist, and publisher. She is the author of the books Músicas, La casa abierta: Conversaciones con 30 poetas, El libro del ldiós, and Pinacoteca del Ateneo Fuente: 100 años. Her work has been published in nationally distributed newspapers and journals, as well as anthologies of poetry, short fiction, and cultural journalism.
Christina MacSweeney is an award-winning translator who has worked with such authors as Valeria Luiselli, Daniel Saldaña París, Elvira Navarro, Verónica Gerber Bicecci, Julián Herbert, Jazmina Barrera, and Karla Suárez. She has also contributed to many anthologies of Latin American literature and has published shorter translations, articles, and interviews on a wide variety of platforms.
Illustration: Rachel Merrill