I am Jaws and this is water / for tea or coffee / water you drink in deep buildings / coffee makers / press a button and milk comes out / soy / almond / coconut / not cow's / I’ve emptied whole truckloads of that into the sea / long ago / truckloads of cheese / jocoque / panela / requesón / really amazing cream / Jalisco dairy products / top quality / thrown into the Pacific / because / good things in small doses / and as you know, we must create scarcity / Sir.

Water / especially water / white gasoline in black cup / all is white and also black / like a job / black and white / like leisure and employment / like a cow / orca / panda / zebra / like your Dalmatian running towards the waves / Sir.

I understand that this is water / and work / neat and good work / meek work for a poor shark / with a shirt made by his mother / Singer machine / a mother who smokes cigarettes / Del Prado or Carmencita / one after another / her children swimming around smoke / with brief burns / unimportant.

I’ve also served / in a hostel / and delivered baguettes / because we sharks are useful / in the tourism industry / they pay to see us work / run away, let’s say / and behind us they run boats and crews / moving nets / the hunt for my body is someone's job / Sir.

But I also read tests: I'm just asking for a chance.

Dora Prieto is a Mexican-Canadian poet living in Oakland, California, where she’s a 2025–27 Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford. Her debut poetry collection is forthcoming with House of Anansi in April 2027—still in search of a title 🙏🏼—and she’s the poetry winner of the 2025 Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers. A member of El Mashup Collective, she writes and lives between languages and geographies, and her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Acentos Review, Maisonneuve, Catapult, The Capilano Review, Room, EVENT, Hazlitt, and more.

Born in a city of eternal Spring (Cuernavaca, Mexico) and raised in el Distrito Federal, Daniela Rodriguez Chevalier currently writes and translates from unceded Coast Salish territories (Vancouver, BC). Her work has appeared in Discorder, PRISM International, carte blanche, and more. She is co-founder of artist collectives mim and El Mashup, and Festival Coordinator, and programmer at the Vancouver Latin American Film Festival. As DJ D-Rod, she co-hosts Vivaporú on CiTR 101.9FM. Recently, she’s been a Citizen Poet in Vancouver's Poet Laureate’s “Here, Hearing” residencies. Dani has two feisty gorgeous dachshunds, Xoco and Rol.

 

Yo soy Jaws y esto es agua / para té o café / agua que se bebe en los profundos edificios / cafeteras / de un botón saldrá la leche / de soya / de almendra / de coco / no de vaca / de ésa he vaciado camiones enteros al mar / hace mucho / camiones cargados de queso / jocoque / panela / requesón / crema buenísima / productos lácteos jaliscienses / de primera calidad / arrojados al Pacífico / porque de lo bue no poco / y como usted sabe, hay que devaluar / Señor.

El agua / sobre todo el agua / blanca gasolina en taza ne gra / todo es blanco y también es negro / como un oficio / blanco y negro / como el ocio y el empleo / como vaca / orca / panda / cebra / como su dálmata corriendo hacia las olas / Señor.

Entiendo que esto es agua / y trabajo / pulcro y buen trabajo / manso trabajo para un pobre tiburón / de camisa hecha por su madre / máquina Singer / una madre que fuma cigarros / Del Prado o Carmencita / uno tras otro / sus niños nadando alrededor del humo / con breves quemaduras / sin importancia.

También he servido / en un hostal / y repartido baguettes / porque los tiburones somos útiles / en el área del turismo / pagan por vernos trabajar / huir, digamos / y tras nosotros funcionan barcos y tripulaciones / redes en movimiento / la cacería de mi cuerpo es el trabajo de alguien / Señor.

Pero también leo pruebas: Sólo le pido una oportunidad.

Xitlalitl Rodríguez Mendoza (Guadalajara, Jalisco, 1982) is the author of several books and chapbooks of poetry, including Polvo lugar, Datsun, Poesía morosa. Prositas de amor contra el SAT, and Jaws [Tiburón] (winner of the Ignacio Manuel Altamirano National Poetry Prize). She is also co-author, with Atahualpa Espinosa Magaña, of the essay collection Poesía y desempleo, a new edition of which, Ahora con más poesía y más empleo, will be released soon. She has translated several children's and young adult books from French, most notably Tengo 14 años y no es una buena noticia by Jo Witek. She is currently pursuing an Interinstitutional Doctorate in Art and Culture at the University of Guadalajara.

Read Dora Prieto and Daniela Rodríguez interviewed by Lauren Peat.