Porto

Bridgelegs remain still in the maze of water that veins through the hills.
One of them grows from the side of the riverbank near the port vinyards.
It's metal calf pierced through orange tiled roof, supporting train and car.
A cable car runs to it overlooking the university. The cable car floats
as if it were an antique industrial dandelion seed caught constantly
between a river and a heaven, level with the city's hilltop.

C/ Val.

A long cracked sidewalk: Calle Valencia,
fine bricked connection from city to seniors.
Catalogue of atrophied limpy clothes lines
Sagged perfectly between plant balconies.

Their wet shirts like flags for immigration.
Wet shirts like flags above bull fight
ticket resale box offices, and the burlesques
of spinning meat at döner kebab spots.
A wet political shirt like a flag that reads
"todo sobre ustedes."

When Asked to Define "Fuzzy" by Non-Native English Speakers

adj. texture between hairy and soft
as in rugs or stuffed animals
even sweaters possibly

also sound
the crunchy kind
as in garage rock
and old stereo recordings

in spanish - borroso

noun. perhaps lint or
a collection of air litter
on clothes or furniture

also slang for police
if you like 70s counter
culture.

completely: it could describe
vagueness. useless complexity.
think morals or language.

Blue Lagoon

I fell with the blunt of my wrist first.

Volcanic rock sliced the skin
sending ribbons of blood to water.
The salt colonizing the wound in a flood.

I swam anyway.

Spanish Orange

This saturated baby skull has fallen.
It rolls toward my sandled feet from off
it's tree. The navel iris staring at me
as if the eyeball had been deadened gray
and plucked from a cyclops.

I pick it up, and we are aquainted.

I think you're an alien but you're native.
My thumbnail runs over your coarser pores
and penetrates your skin to see if your insides
are different from normal
or to know your bloody inards.

A fleshy ball of threads and meat
that's stinging puss latches to a hangnail.

This is the venom I have chosen.
This is the foreigner's control.

La Latina - El Rastro Market

Fakeleather-bound backpacks
cascade on top of each other
under a handwritten stamp: "25 euro!"
They are lining a wall between
the faux Morrocan and gitano-hippy
tapestry stands that proudly display brass
statues spraypainted with gold.

A wrinkled woman burns incense
accross the street. First rose, then dragon's blood
then rose. The clouds sink into her tanned crows feet
and the empty space of her tarped enclosure.
A tourist smokehouse. A cage. A garden.

Choirs of Yoruba drummers
snake between the shops and balconies
of apartments. Their echoes broadcasting
the soundtrack for no one
and for outdoor tapas.

Sunday's business is surviving.

Chueca

Tucked between the fetish bars and sex shops,
 opens the alleys where daytime prostitutes take
their smoke breaks. They go to the gay district
to be at peace. To laugh the same as the  bourgeoisie
brunch elite, trendy in their occupation of the
neighborhood. To chat like the elderly
queers smiling above their wrist
resting cane handles. To disappear with
drag queens, femme lesbians, unbearded butch men,
homeless teens from Galicia, and the fleeting
smell of sweat, beer, and urine from last night's
club crowd.