Maria Dayana Fraile (Venezuela)
Maria Dayana Fraile (Puerto La Cruz, Venezuela, 1985) received her undergraduate degree in Literature from the Universidad Central de Venezuela. She received also an Master degree from University of Pittsburgh. Her poems and short stories have been awarded various prizes, including the Festival Literario Ucevista, the Premio de Cuento Policlínica Metropolitana and the Semana de la Nueva Narrativa Urbana. Her first book, Granizo y otros relatos, was the winner of the I Bienal de Literatura Julián Padrón. She has published Ahorcados de tinta (2019) and La máquina de viajar por la luz in CAAW (Miami).
Forbidden Fruit
I wanted to eat from the night
and I kept the palms of my hands always extended
while I slept
lifted skyward
they waited awkwardly
for the luminous flights of a cricket
and the defendants evaded themselves
irreperably
at dawn certainty
only opened itself to the horizontal figures
and these
when they awoke
remembered nothing
they barely managed to glimpe
sweetening the coffee
with meager plastic teaspoons that grew like tangles
in the signs indicating
the bus stop
With Bataille
you’re right
I’ll pay my portion of hate
the “Made in China” knives won’t save me
the onion slices are too imperfect
on this great plastic cutting board
swollen with sophistic light
half way between stoic rage and green peppers
―the need to be vegetable―
hands stained with blood or ketchup
(same thing)
not caring
gripping the knife’s handle
walking along its edge
crossing it
being crossed
―caressing my face with the idea of the knife―
like an illustrated beast
that bites the sun and loses its teeth
in a jail made of ginger
sheltered by dreadful appliances
and savage china
―that embed her with their pastel painted trimmings―
like an ancestral torture
not too practical
the drop that falls from the faucet and hits the sky’s head
rats crawling in the veins
you’re right
I’ll pay my portion of hate
not even dance therapy will save me
not even death itself
not even
the open highway free from 8 A.M. traffic
will save me
Office 3 P.M.
Feel like crying
Feel like hiding these ink birds
in my hair
they play with matches
stab pencils into light sockets
Feel like rinsing this afternoon’s mouth
with sugar water
(so that only I can hear her)
Feel like biting into the Times New Roman font
hard
to find its skin
to lick it
