REMASTERED MEMORIES OF SPAIN

La Rambla Catalunya, Barcelona

“The one street in the world I didn’t want to end.”

            Frederico García Lorca

After leaving the unfinished

Sagrada Família, cornerstone set

in 1882, Patti and I stop for tapas

along La Rambla Catalunya, rojo y

blanco sangria on the small table,

            groups of pretty girls, Picasso-slender

            line drawings, strolling by, angular

            bodies in motion, laughing,

vaping, vamping, so different

from the muscular arrogant boys

following behind, all pecs and penises,

shoulders bumping, young mastiffs

off leash smirking as they pass

two refined 50-ish women pausing

at a shop window, faces frozen

in reflection, unaware they are

observed by an older man I am

watching, alone at a nearby table,

napkin at his jowls, paunch in his lap,

fork speared with the sweet pescado

suspended in space near his parted

lips, memory of wild ocean currents

in the pink flesh, barbed hook piercing

his cheek, tail flopping on the deck,

a sip of wine to wash it all down.

           —SL, Port Royal, SC, February 2024