a Perimeter 3

Pilar Fraile Amador

Two Poems
Translated by Lizzie Davis


1

from Hedge

we circle one another like disoriented animals. eyes covered from behind. smoke comes out of our ears and our noses and in our hands there are sticks that flare and then fall to the ground. giant matches.
we growl or cry out or leap close enough to touch one another. moving and shrieking like birds. when night comes the paint melts off of our faces down toward our necks and we lurch back to the settlement.
we look at our reflections in the windows. to make sure our skin is still the same shade. our hands are still empty

2

from Cult

it moves slowly when it feeds them. collecting potato peels bits of bread gnawed fisheyes. slipping mouthfuls in between their teeth. careful not to scrape their snouts. one at a time. so as not to wake the weakest ones.
on the morning of the coldest day it guts them. then it gathers their blood in a cup and keeps it.

when everything is clean we listen for the howling.


Pilar Fraile Amador earned her PhD in Philosophy from University of Oviedo and currently teaches at Enseñanza Secundaria in Madrid. Her publications include El límite de la ceniza (Prensas universitarias de Zaragoza), Larva (Editorial Amphibia) and La pecera subterránea (Ediciones Amargord). Her work has also been featured in the homage for José Ángel Valente, Pajaros Raíces (Abada Editores), the anthology La república de la imaginación (Legados Ediciones), and Forrest Gander's most recent book of translation, Panic Cure: Poems from Spain for the 21st Century.

Lizzie Davis is a writer and translator living in Madrid. Her translations from the Spanish include Elena Medel's My First Bikini (Jai-Alai Books, 2015) and Pilar Fraile Amador's Circular (Skat Editores, 2015). Her work has appeared in The Brooklyn Rail, Asymptote, Words Without Borders, and Circumference, among others.