Project Description
Mabel Encinas
Mabel Encinas has participated in diverse groups of artists and non-artists, wanting to create a fairer society. In relation to writing, she is a member of Hispanic American Women Writers and Spanish and Latin AmericanPoets and Writers (SLAP). Writing and art has allowed her to process her experiences as a migrant woman, and to participate in the world. However, with a full time job in another field, it is thanks to groups and collaborations that she keeps on both writing and producing art. She believes that we learn together and take our work to wider audiences through events, publications and workshops. She has published in two collective works of poetry and narrative, and has a collection of poetry called Intimate View. She was awarded the second place in the Festival of Chilean Voices for Latin AmericanPoets in London.
Soledad
1
Mabel Encinas
Soledad’s skin is ice;
and her heart, polished steel
that does not beat,
but rests inside her chest.
Her eyes are dead,
which can be inferred
because they have no depth.
Soledad’s womb is an abyss,
and her breasts, two dry valleys.
Her feet lack their normal weight
and her ankles are fragile.
Soledad dresses in black or grey,
and never wears anything shiny.
Her straight hair lies heavily
on her shoulders,
and her eyebrows are dark.
Soledad comes and goes.
As she walks down the street,
she passes all pedestrians
without looking at them.
She does not have a mobile,
or if she has one,
it never rings.
Soledad seeks without finding.
However she always finds:
the drops of rain,
the crusty brownish leaves
and all the rotten metals.
When she arrives home,
she cooks –no salt or pepper–,
and eats like an automaton
listening to the silence.
Then,
she waits for nothing.
Soledad entertains herself
(she never plays)
doing and undoing her hair
to forget time.
If she could imagine something
she would imagine that her hair
could grow green like a creeper
quite close to walls and railings.
But Soledad has never had a goal
or any image.
Soledad lacks pretexts:
she lives cause she is alive,
her doing is only inertia,
She never does for others.
There are indeed no others.
Late in the evening,
Soledad goes to bed.
She sleeps with open eyes,
and logically,
she never dreams.
Today, Soledad woke up
early morning.
At passing by the mirror,
she thought she saw a sparkle.
She stopped and turned,
only to find herself.
She saw, for the first time,
her eyes.
Quickly,
she moved away.
A warm drop reached her lip.
She cleaned it with her tongue:
it was so salty.
Then, Soledad, for just an instant,
remembered that once upon a time…
she could smile.
1
‘Soledad’ is a female name in Spanish that means ‘solitude’