Edgar Degas: The Millinery Shop
by Adam Zagajewski, trans. Clare Cavanaugh
Hats are innocent, bathed in the soft light
which smoothes the contours of objects.
A girl is working.
But where are brooks? Groves?
Where is the sensual laughter of nymphs?
The world is hungry and one day
will invade this tranquil room.
For the moment it contents itself
with ambassadors who announce:
I’m the ochre. I’m the sienna.
I’m the color of terror, like ash.
In me ships sink.
I’m the blue, I’m cold, I can be pitiless.
And I’m the color of dying, I’m patient.
I’m the purple (you don’t see much of me),
for me triumphs, processions.
I’m the green, I’m tender,
I live in wells and in the leaves of birch trees.
The girl whose fingers are agile
cannot hear the voices, for she’s mortal.
She thinks of the coming Sunday
and the rendezvous she has
with the butchers son
who has coarse lips
and big hands
stained with blood.
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