Alicia Askenase

Modest Elegy

               en memoria de Modesto Solans Mur

Gris sky we crossed Barcelona
Cataluña for Barbastro of Aragon

your birth at your end site she:
nada of hospitals for you to me

admit el querer crept and burnt
stages us out recall indoor sitios
the last time we never
danced into situations
of pequeñitas side streets shops
of feathers simply encantado
por possessive apostrophes’
case with no of, good-bye dear

Valencia blue hands back sun
to water stroke flight laps
dusk patterns you said
once jugador de baloncesto
as if it were a sentence to love

him but I did and gave a vuelta
to you deeply in your dark I
chose not tú follow which
would have had no now o
future, señor had-the-blues
nodding to the sea’s
final playa Las Ramblas
we-never-got-to part

yet yes by Andalusían rooftop whitewash spray painted joint
at southern most tip of continent the stars washed a pool
there too not dip a toe in its then now what
matters the voluptuous candid immediate

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