blades whose slow turns are rifles aiming, for I cannot
help but think of Lorca’s killing between here and the village
Alfacar, and the firing squad’s gun pops are that flamencan
dancer’s heel stomps. I bring back, too, her hand claps
and the cantate’s Andalusian moans like dried sticks
or bones crumbling in his throat. Yet, only souvenir shops
and steep winding streets accrete in this region’s stacked
brochures. Her dress spills across the restaurant’s floor
like a red shadow, darker than billboards of black bulls
high above roadways, motionless but seeming to gallop
like Franco’s brigades. All seeing is an act of war.
Tanks and artillery. Spanish castles and mosques.
I choose to lose, and beneath a watercolorist’s sky
study my wife’s splendor against the unruffled backdrop
of the Alboran Sea whose waves match my sighs
and bomb this beach, launching sprays of white duds.
