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.

Calle Beso

Down this road
is the plaza
where Queen Isabella
would burn heretics
on moss crosses, claiming
divine intervention -
- a terrorist attack is always theatre.

On the opposite end of the street
rests the yellow house nestling the bosoms
of the mountain. Where a long
blonde haired woman died for three days.
Kept alive for her beauty, she awoke
from the second recorded catatonic state.

From then on, people in Granada
attached ropes from the wrists
of casket bound corpses
to bells.

To ensure they were really dead.

The Borzois of Casino de Reina

Five of them
huddle in a circle by
an orange tree where
they have peed.

In awe
of their similarities.
Skeletal aliens
sniffing, prancing, to
the distant sounds

of three ametuer flamenco
guitarists. They are clapping
their branch legs to the dry
ground. Jumping over lapdogs.
They are thin and sad.

A private show to the
siesta smokers who
watch from the benches above,
flicking cigarette filters to the
Borzoi´s dancefloor.

The Last Train

As my metro card hummed
behind a turnstile. I saw the next
train sign towards Moncloa digitally shift
from 0 minutes to 15.

I truly thought I would never
make it back.

Chamartin Station's styrofoam-white lights
fell like rain. I had to pee and
the digital sign estimated
that the last train was now
13 minutes away.

Pacing the tiled floor,
I witnessed the station seemingly expand
to accommodate Saturday
night's final crowd of torn denimed partykids,
knockoff handbag salespeople, and
late shift streetperformers.

At 12:29 the echoey metro screech
howled through its tunnel. The last
of the yellow line sounded so self richeou
tonight. It probably knew it's importance.

At 12:30 I boarded the tinny
vessel. The windows squeaked when
I pressed my finger down them to
draw a smiley face.
The fog filled in the translucence
when the doors shut, sealing
the crowded, breathy heat of Madrilleños.

A young father with his strollered
child and the child's mother
stood impatiently towards the door.
He padded his forehead sweat
with baby wipes while the child
let out innocent screams. I could make out from
his conversation to the mother
"This place is big. I want to return to Cuba."

She looked at him and then at the baby.
She plucked the little one out of the buggy
hugging the tantrum out of him.
"I do not like it in Cuba" she whispered
in between headkisses.

Before the father could respond the
Train lurched the family, the stroller, the Saturday night crowd,
and me into the front end of the train,
announcing over the itchy speaker,
"proxima parada: Lavapies."
I excused myself through the crunch, out of the train.

How strange to have such a serious conversation
on the metro, I thought, still needing to pee.