Reign

Reign

The track is riven with ruin again, each run to the shops is a delicate slalom, straddling the sweep and swale of the gravel, driven down the hill, shot with sparkling rivulets slowly leached from the spill. At the football, waiting for the boys to change, she told me how her mother would rock and cry when it rained like this, always kept her papers in a plastic bag, how the slope of the roof left her a palm of breath, her brother, on the other side of the door, cried till there was nothing left.

When Franco came, his baby face still swaddled in the victors’ flag, he fretted over the mud on his riding boots, damp little frog, lisping his promises, told them he’d come and see them in the spring again.

Again, my son sent me a siren, while the president put on his airs and laboured over lunch, a suite of rooms upstairs, buttoned his shirt and zipped his flies, puffed up his putty face to bleat out his breezy slip of lies.

Late to the emergency, I presume he ordered a second round of chupitos, with the customary urgency. I’ve been a waiter in this waiter’s country. I’ve seen the cayetanos, ready, with their big business hair, silk and merino sweaters draped across their shoulders, I’ve decoded the signal, in the prinky squeak of those fucking loafers.

I’ve ripped my shit, split my arm half off, mounding up your millions. Paso por paso, I’ve come to know the haunting of hope’s pit, the blind frustration, Spain’s exhausted toiling minions. Given half a chance, a chink of light, give me another swig of cognac, help that double breasted bastard with his mumbled rosary down from the truck.

I wish you all good luck, yes, that’s enough. Now time to say goodnight.