1899 | The Dress

Abstract

1899 | The Dress Claudia Prado (bio) Translated From Spanish By Rebecca Gayle Howell 1 Easyin the bright morningbetween the outbuildingsthe worker's laughslices the cold air The boss talks onlyto the horses Two boys dragtheir mounts of wooland leather in the dirt,whispering They arenot yet students of crueltyor imitation They smileSoon, they will all rideaway, made small [End Page 488] Around the house,among the poplars:the horizon, again A perfect circle 2 She moved through the kitchenin easy pleasures: her morning,her rested body Outside, the sun came softto the stones and grasses,the trench When the fire startedup her dress, she didn't knowshe was alone They barely said what happened:hot smoke behind the door,her race across the field Instead they sayThe men were goneA daydream is a devil's switch 3 In quiet dusk, they returnThey leave the red sky,its secret meannessTomorrow, more wind [End Page 489] they think They don'texpect another signOverhead, a raptorfloats on transparent airNothing bills the sorrow:the soot kitchen, droughtfire, the poplars standing tall [End Page 490] Claudia Prado Claudia Prado is an Argentinean poet and documentary filmmaker. She is the author of three poetry collections: El interior de la ballena (Nusud 2000), which won the third Fondo Nacional de las Artes Poetry Prize in 1999, Aprendemos de los padres (Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten 2002), and Viajar de noche (Limón 2007). Rebecca Gayle Howell Rebecca Gayle Howell is Poetry Editor for Oxford American and the author of two critically-acclaimed collections, American Purgatory and Render/An Apocalypse. Among her awards are fellowships from United States Artists, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, and the Carson McCullers Center. She lives in the town where she was born, Lexington, Kentucky. Copyright © 2020 Johns Hopkins University Press