Dear México

Forgive me, querido México,
I am late

but you, 
who existed long before they invented history,
know what it means to wait.

Who and what you are,
my meagre humanity will never fully comprehend 
but

in your present I will taste your past

and somewhere within the margins of your existence
I will find the unyielding echo 
of your ancient music.


***


Break my heart, querido México,
break my eager, implacable heart,

remould it in the shapes of your labyrinthine dreams,
shower it with the longing of your magnetic stars,
reveal to it the footsteps of your forgotten gods,
soak it in the endless solitude of your deserts,
shelter it within the adobe walls of your language,

break my heart, querido México,
break my fiery, hungry heart

and carve into it
the map of a new, wide-eyed life.


[2:37 pm, 23rd July 2023,
Condesa, Ciudad de México.]