Texas Hollywood

—Almería, Spain

Bored as St. Sebastian with all those barbs,

a reluctant teenage boy drug by his father

and duties of the holidays. Like Mars.

Good thing I’m not there to not go, his brother

texted from the states, but now no bars.

Europe’s only desert? No gracias: he’d rather

the blood and sequins of the toros’ eros.

No shade from either side of the thoroughfare

right now, high noon, this blinding glare

the reason for broad-brimmed hats, boleros,

and a street oriented South South December.

All this dreamlight nothing to remember.

The red sand underfoot puffs fine as flour.

He leans his back against and rests his arms

on the crossbar of the hitching post an hour

in an anti-ecstasy of false alarms.

Even he knows the prancing Andalusian,

its neck reined back like a tower of blood,

is no cutting horse, the art of the rider less illusion

than the fronts of the one street neighborhood.

A cowboy from the rooftop bellows poppycock:

Choose between bread or a dead dog! A gunshot.

The only cloud in the sky is this odd cloud

like a bleached human femur floating on end.

From a roof falls a man in love with dust.

Then oblivion of a horse bolting away. Disgust,

the boy aloud: Is it over? How far to the bus?

If you’re walking, a pretty girl behind him, I bet

as long as it takes to smoke a cigarette.