I Meander through Spain, Pondering

I think they live in the past here.

A large comfy city built of small neighborhoods

all standing on one another’s heads.

They call them barrios.

I’ve heard stories of that in America,

when bars and pastry shops and churches

were two to a block, sitting on top of each other.

But now we have shopping malls.

Eyes are fantasy stories here.

I’ve heard stories of men and women

who had eyes of lavender and silver grey

gold and iridescent green. But I thought those

were all imaginary. Here they stare at me.

Did America have eyes like that in the past?

Maybe we burned them with the witches.

Last night we went to a magic show.

The magician was  young and laughed a lot.

At one point he cut a woman in half. I wouldn’t have been impressed,

but her feet kept moving, ten meters from her head.

And that stuck with me.

Today we had migas again, una comida pastoral.

They mix dry bread crumbs with spices and ham

and eat it with grapes. I requested it for my birthday.

They tell me that “pan con pan es comida de tontos.”

I eat bread with it anyway.

Adelina likes my silver watch.

My other mother gave it to me a year ago. It’s

made of silver spoons. It’s been turning my wrist

green, so tonight she cleaned it for me. 

I ordered one for her for Christmas from the artist my Mom knows

in Pennsylvania. But Adelina can’t read English, so telling you here

won’t spoil it. And I bought stockings for my Spanish family from

el Chino. They don’t hang Christmas stockings here.

I wanted to fix that.

Tonight I thanked Adelina

for being my Spanish mother. I told her

Spain is lovely, but would be lonely without

a mother. But I said it in Spanish, so it sounded different.