Open air on three sides of our mountainside town. Donkeys, ruffled dresses, the brutal capirotes of Semana Santa. I want to know when you last ate an animal whole, when you took its oiled and silver body from a plate and felt its spine turn particle between your teeth. Clematis, the trumpet mouths of bindweed, a broken guitar mimicking the breeze. In my memories, I can milk, still, the streets of the grandmothers crocheting on wobbling stools outside their homes. I can clock the hour by the movements of the afternoon winding down. A view is always a thing of great depth, but Miró reduced to geometry: squares and rectangles. Breaking landscapes into quadrilaterals, they become easier to comprehend. Do you remember how the streets ran ochre with the rain? How our feet swam upstream against the rivulets. I want to mash it all green again. The fountain frozen into hands that winter. Roars from the bullring a sharp yellow, then a sharp red.

 

 

Megan Arlett