Seville

She learned the paths, the winding

narrows of foreign streets. Seville nights

crawling on, fractions of time, ex-pats

in riverside bars, Spanish curving in

mountainous patterns, sticking to her tongue,

churning in her throat. Childhood dreams

swirling in chupitos, the only word that

didn’t feel like gravel on her lips. This is 23,

swaying in the streets of a European city,

hanging on the rails of Puente de la Barqueta,

like a child tangled in jump ropes, flattened water

waiting below, billboard lights blooming on the

Guadalquivir. Laughter reaching out from her

esophagus, English cutting through Spanish, shoulder blades

and onyx curlicues and the drunken, glorious site of dawn