Con el Dolor de la Mortal Herida

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz - 1651-1695

Love opened a mortal wound.
In agony, I worked the blade
to make it deeper. Please,
I begged, let death come quick.

Wild, distracted, sick,
I counted, counted
all the ways love hurt me.
One life, I thought— a thousand deaths.

Blow after blow, my heart
couldn't survive this beating.
Then—how can I explain it?—

I came to my senses. I said,
Why do I suffer? What lover
ever had so much pleasure

Notes:
Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz died in Mexico after ministering to other nuns stricken during a plague, on 17 April 1695.

The painitng above is Sor Juana by Mauricio García Vega