Democracy in Print: The Best of The Progressive Magazine, 1909–2009

La Nina Obediente / The Obedient Girl

box, hose, rake, broom, saw, ax—household words put down by an Australian novelist in a book of true stories she’d sent me. A singular woman who’d created herself out of the need to be only herself. Her family names, I thought, reborn on my breath as I spoke them quietly to everyone. It’s never too late, is it, to lose your life. La Niña Obediente / The Obedient Girl Marjorie Agosín june 1999 Obediente la niña con sus zapatos lustrados el blanco vestido del orden Obediente la niña saluda al general que le rebanó las uñas al hermano menor que quemó los pechos de la hermana mayor. Obediente la niña sonríe, hace las reverencias apropiadas y toda turbada gime cuando un soldado la llama hermosa y roza su mano de guerra entre sus piernas adormecidas. Obediente la niña vive porque en un país de niños obedientes los fantasmas jóvenes aparecen en días de luz salvaje para secuestrar a las niñas desobedientes, a las gitanas perdidas entre los bosques de luz y sombra. Agosín / La Niña Obediente 223 Obediente la niña se acerca al soldado y lo besa con temor es el soldado que incendió los libros de su casa que rajó sus vestidos rojizos y jugó con los candelabros de plata y sangre. La niña obediente no habla es una muñeca dormida y se deja hacer como si su cuerpo fuese un país de viajeros oscuros.  The obedient girl with the patent-leather shoes and starched white dress The obedient girl greets the general who sliced the Wngernails of her younger brother and burned the breasts of her older sister. The obedient girl smiles, makes the appropriate curtsies and moans completely Xustered when the soldier tells her she is beautiful and rubs his hand of war between her lifeless legs. The obedient girl lives because in a country of obedient children young ghosts appear on days of savage light to kidnap disobedient girls, gypsies lost in the forests of light and shadow. 224 part 11 parading poetry The obedient girl approaches the soldier and kisses him with fear he is the soldier who burned the books of her house who slashed the crimson dresses and played with the candlesticks of silver and blood. The obedient girl doesn’t speak she is a sleepy doll that surrenders herself as if her body were a country of obscure travelers. —Translated by Celeste Kostopulos-Cooperman Veterans Day Adrienne Rich november 2000 1 No Xag heavy or full enough to hide this face this body swung home from home sewn into its skin Let you entrusted to close the box for Wnal draping take care what might be due to the citizen wounded by foreign blast nor shell (is this body a child’s? if? why?) eyes hooded in refusal— over these to lower the nation’s pall, thick Xutter this body shriveled into itself —a normal process they have said Rich / Veterans Day 225 ...