Brandel France de Bravo
Winter 2025 | Poetry
Arachne
after Stephanie McCarter’s translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses
let me be / woolwork / stained thirsty/
a / rough / cloud / painted / and irked /
reckless girl / i take my own advice /
when the sun comes up / toil / trans
-itions / into / fabric / the wounded /
transformed / loud beak / grappling
eagle / dappled snake / savage bull /
phony grapes / envy / shreds / success
ties a noose / hang / the future
I don’t sew, knit, or crochet. Felting is the closest I’ve come. I dipped wool in water, cupped and molded it with my hands, needled it into small animals. I made them talk and sing. Small children appreciate such things. And the parents in attendance appreciated the children’s raptness. I performed The Runaway Bunny. I performed The Owl and the Pussycat because who doesn’t love a runcible spoon? My puppet shows were—if I say so myself—a great success. I would have liked to put on The Story of Ferdinand, a bull who was anything but savage, but I wasn’t sure about the classroom message, the recklessness of not doing what is expected. Of taking one’s own advice. Sure, we wanted the children to stop and smell the flowers but also to toil. It’s so hard to strike a balance. Harder still when the box is kicked from under your feet. The only time I’ve been truly present, wasn’t thinking about what’s next, was when I was on my knees among those children.
Brandel France de Bravo’s third collection of poems, Locomotive Cathedral, was chosen in the Backwaters Press contest for publication by the University of Nebraska Press in March 2025. Her poems have recently appeared in Best American Poetry 2024, 32 Poems, Barrow Street, Conduit, Southern Humanities Review and elsewhere. She has received fellowships from the DC Commission for the Arts, the Hermitage Artist Retreat and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Brandel is from Washington, D.C., and teaches a meditation program developed at Stanford University called Compassion Cultivation Training.©