Challenging Poetry

Spain: the mantilla

they wear them, as their mothers
did—each layer of lace
a shield, burying them behind
cloister walls in cocoons of silence
where no words dared
burst free, and they became
pretty things to be taken out
and admired, then placed on a high
shelf, with layers of lace
muffling their voices. they wear them
with their faces free, their voices ready
the elaborate peineta adding
four, six, ten inches in height
and the mantilla—
a fall of lace down their backs.
a memory. a promise.

line count: 16

Author's Note ▶︎

All right. I admit that I've been influenced in this poem by movies and books, where Spanish daughters in medieval times were depicted as being repressed. Raised in convents, not knowing much about the world until they were given from their father's care into a husband's, who was older and more worldly. I know that wasn't always the case, but the depictions that I've seen (the one that comes to mind is the Spanish princess who comes to marry a prince, but the veil is so heavy that he doesn't realize at first that the sobbing he hears is his young bride) make me feel claustrophobic.

I love the look of the mantilla and the beauty of the lace, and I love that they're still used by women today on special occasions like holidays and weddings, however, I can't help but associate them with the past . . . which (to me) makes wearing them a promise never to let yourself be silenced again.

https://www.donquijote.org/spanish-culture/traditions/spanish-clothing/