I was living in a new town, unfamiliar to me
With its sparrows and mugwort. I’m trying
To wriggle my way out of the valley of the shadow
of you-know-what. New town, new mailbox.
Discontented, I walk around vacantly
ripping up ads and correspondence both.
The barista at the café, her new hacking cough
she says will last the rest of her life, para toda la vida.
I want to give her a hug; tell her everything will be alright
but I can’t, my dad just died. Instead, I give her a look
like a Terrycloth mother. I return to my past again, a gibbon
in the maw of loss, pawing old photo albums: Madrid, 1972.
Dad, what were you doing in that decade? I try to look
For you in a catalog of frescoes and fascists. There is no
one to trust—Dad saw Franco’s secret police gun down
students on the beach. Bodies hardening like papier-mâché.
In the photos, his hair was so long, skin sunburnt, and eyes
energetic with a far-off gaze of unyielding buoyancy.
