Curious and philosophical, riven with mortality, yet also brimming with humor and play, bruno darío’s poems have always moved me—ever since I met him in 2017, when I saw him give a house reading in Mexico City on a double bill with John DeWitt (thank you, Jackie Wang, for telling me to go). Quickly he became a favorite person, and a favorite poet; I don’t think anyone has ever been so definitive of the figure of the poet for me. bruno was born in Cuernavaca in 1993 and passed away from brain cancer in 2022 at 29 in Mexico City, leaving behind one of the most unique and unpredictable bodies of work in recent Mexican poetry. My translation of his visionary trilogy, Lantana; or, the Indissoluble Exhalation—all of which but the final ten pages was translated in draft with bruno himself—is forthcoming from Ugly Duckling Presse in Spring 2025, marking the first time all three books will have been published together in any language. The four pieces here are from the second volume, airsickness, a book of letters written by a character named “the Inconsolable” to various figures in his life.
—Kit Schluter
from airsickness
July
Wretch:
As you know, one of our day’s thinkers breaks it down like this: politics have failed because they have forgotten their responsibility to poetry. To think of the State not as an abstract entity—and how abstract it is! When the forty-three students were disappeared, for example, the chorus of the masses cried: It was the State! “Who” is the State, if not ourselves…?—or some cushy thing for those in power, no: to reduce it to its individual, scatological scale. Every figure, every idol can be humanized. That’s why we find it so delightful to catch a superhero eating a sandwich or our dads taking a shit. All governing subjects are affected by sensations; governable, if seducible…
I just learned that you’ve been smearing my work and person among our peers. It’s not the first time you’ve woven such contrivances, but it is the first time I’ve confronted you about it. How could it even occur to your fried little brain that I’m spreading AIDS around the student body with nothing but glances?
I fear for your health—and as soon as that fear hits me, I fear for my own.
July
Friend:
They laid me off at work for showing up every day on all fours. The moment they fired me I pissed my pants, claiming dementia. My boss couldn’t believe it, because, well, he’s my dad. Now he can’t look me in the eyes without laughing.
Immensely interesting moment! Life, here I am and I’m all yours! I’ll tear you open, I’ll tire you out, you’ll get tired of me! I’ll propagate you with every heartbeat you allot me!, you roared that night.
I’m getting ready to start a translation tomorrow, which no one asked me for, but which I consider necessary. There aren’t many out there, and the ones that are out there are frankly insulting.
It’s getting dark. For today, I’ll be content with one last walk under this blue which, so aformentionedly described, keeps gliding over the mystery and is both source and nourishment of the souls which have been hurled down upon this globe.
July
Father:
The Spanish word for smile, sonrisa, comes from English’s sunrise. When I got sick and they had to shave my head, you shaved yours too and called it a “gesture of solidarity.” It made me sick. When you asked me, with the solemnity that comes with having a failure for a son, “So… are you writing?” I told you I wasn’t. I want to tell you, I’m always writing; even when I’m not, there’s a pen stuck into my brain. I can’t put into words what I feel when I open a door and cross the threshold to place my this in another space. Why can’t I pass through the door if it’s closed? How does one go over to a place? There’s something essential about prewriting. Maybe things like to be said for a while. And who are we to think we have the right to say them? Ah, maybe things choose their names according to the pulse of their shapes… ever-changing… The stone decided it should be called stone: language fell into the trap.
I found a calico cat. Someone had abandoned her a few yards off the path I take on my morning walk. I gave her to old man Quirino, the animal lover—if I can hardly handle myself, how am I supposed to take care of a calico cat, which, although she’s missing an eye, does rouse a sense of hope? We agreed that she will choose her own name.
Funeral home
October
Sister:
I return to the river and find it bitter. A rotten chemical stink climbs around my house. I guess there are layers of fossils and promises under the earth we walk on.
Today’s your birthday. I hope it finds you spending very happy moments in sweet solitude and in the company of whoever you choose. The love you have: let it overflow. There’s a gift in this envelope. It was developed yesterday. There’s no translation or synonym for this ritual: in French: traitement, in Italian: sviluppo, in German: Entwicklung, in Spanish: revelar (to reveal), in Japanese: 現像 (development), in Chinese: 冲洗 (wash, flush), in Korean: 현상 (phenomenon). To develop is to burn further in order to experience other figures, other contours.
I know you’re offended by my distance and that I seem like a coward to you. I won’t argue the point, but realize how complicated it is to be present—I spent five days there, and my life almost ended three times. It doesn’t matter how much I love the flow of the crowds and kisses in the metro at rush hour; the women putting on their makeup in the busiest car…
If only our Father played with dolls… Sister… Put your elbows on the table… Bring to light, develop, reveal…