The scorpion, shame of evil, carries poison on its back, the

memory of having been a gentle bird that sang. Punished under

the sign of any god, it lost its wings, a skeleton searching for them

amongst stones, mute and desperately disgusted with himself, it ponders,

­moves its pincers.

They say that when bitterness overflows it, and in agony,

moved by an ancestral rage, it raises its tail, curses the sky,

and sticks the tip to itself.

They say the scorpion is sentimental

Julia Santibáñez is a writer, editor, translator and cultural television host. She has published nine books, amongst them the collection of cultural chronicles El lado B de la cultura (The B side of culture; Penguin Random House, 2021) and Eros una vez (Seix Barral, Uruguay, 2017), which was awarded the Premio Internacional de Poesía Mario Benedetti. She is the manager of the Cátedra Carlos Fuentes de Literatura Hispanoamericana at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).

Translation by Gabriella Munoz, founding editor of Puentes Review.