Clotilde
She’s put on her flowered dress
Seated alone, centre of the room, she hums
Expecting nothing, nobody.
Time’s contours have grown hazy
Unless he was the one to abandon her?
Yet just before, he left her flowers on a dress and a stockpile of songs
To welcome others entering the room, yet others still arriving, taking their place
round the table, others who soon try and tell her to sing a bit softer, while others
toss game pieces onto the board, and others immediately start fighting over the
red one, and others repeat the instructions, to be challenged again in five
minutes, while others stare at the door, and others demand quiet, and still others throw the dice then move their pieces much farther than they should, as others accuse them, and others say
what’s important is we’re playing together, and others ask what time will we eat,
and others stand up, others come to get those who can no longer walk, and
others congratulate her on her win, then say see you in a bit Clotilde.
In her favourite flowered dress, her voice clear, she hums.
Hélène Herault is is a French writer and poet. She views writing as an essential, indispensable act. Her incisive poetry and prose draw on her life experiences as an activist, mother, grandmother, and reader of many, many books. Previous work includes the short story collection
La Petite Prigent, winner of the 2018 Ozoir’Elles prize, and the short stories “Un Exil de Papier”, awarded second prize in the 2019 Concours de Nouvelles LIBRE-Librinova, and “Au Prix Fort”, which appeared in the anthology
Loin du Coeur (benefiting the Solidarité Femmes foundation). Her recent epistolary novella, Sens Unique, was published in 2024 by L’Ire de L’ours. She is a frequent and longstanding contributor of poetry to
Pro/p(r)ose Magazine.
Liza Tripp has been a translator of French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese into English since 2003. She has translated numerous books for publishers including Assouline, Rizzoli, and Schiffer Publishing. She holds an MPhil in French Translation from CUNY Graduate Center, a BA in French Translation from Barnard College, and a Certificate in French to English Translation from New York University.
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