By Leo Boix
In 1879 Reverend Dalton took the Princes on board
the HMS Bacchante, to teach them how to be real men.
Victoria thought the ship might sink, drowning the boys.
But for three years it was their home and off they went.
They arrived in Buenos Aires and toured the dusty city,
the Reverend took daguerreotypes, ochre photographs
of buildings and squares, including one of the pretty
Plaza Victoria with benches, trees, statues, islands of grass,
the triumphal arch flanked by arcades. What did they think
of the Argentinian metropolis, the way people dressed?
Did they see porteños sipping maté, that strange drink?
The Reverend forbade the Princes to mix with the plebes.
Eventually, one of the Princes became George V, Emperor
of sorts, and always remembered his Argentinian adventure.
LEO BOIX is a bilingual Latinx poet born in Argentina who lives and works in Deal, Kent. He is one of the best-known bilingual Latinx poets from Argentina in Deal.
Artwork by Izzy Fergusson