One Night in SpainInspired by "You Hated Spain" by Ted Hughes from “Birthday Letters”

by Marilyn Braendeholm

I was caught by the darkness of Spain
where deep shadows of breeze frightened
us from entering too far. You
thought it was tapas and wine but my Spain
was cool alleys and curtain confessionals where
my northern acclimate prowled like hunger. I
can’t recall despising heat so much. I felt
at war with it. To think I wear thick socks at home.
We ate late to avoid the heat. Everyone did. The
flies circled our heads, hyaenas blood-raw
and biting at our legs. You insisted on light
to see the food on your plate, and the waiter, he
lit a match to a snubbed candle that floated oiled
in cloudy liquid. That fluid, whatever it was, anchovy
oil perhaps, drew the flies so close we saw their faces.
Their sooty eyes begging us to feast, the
wave of our hands to no effect, as rhythms north african
further developed the swelter of heat. A ladder of black
oiled smoke funnelled from the candle, its edges
tempting us into a kiss across the table. Where to,
we asked, where next when everything
about this place frightened
me and you.

THAT IMMORTAL STAMP

by Marilyn Braendeholm

Church bells. That round-up horrid sound,
reminding my spellbound soul of tears told
at fireside, and they toll, those bells,
for lamps dying, burnt-out in damp clad
tombs. And we sigh over fresh flowers
and church bells, that immortal stamp.

Bleak

by Marilyn Braendeholm

She felt it in her bones, a pronged ache –
Stretched before her feet the long road
through Bleak months.
She was falling,
tumbling
out of summer. Autumn
already tickling
and teasing
light summer days from her hair,
and with every step through crisp
rusty leaves, clouds
of dried dust
settled on her white summer shoes.
It was time
for lace-ups
and those
bloody-minded
bleak shoes.

Emptied Clouds

by Marilyn Braendeholm

Ambivalence, they said,
empties clouds of water
and incense of its holy
intent and yet, fear of

breathing in tenderness
kept them choked and dazed.
Their prayers rise on thin strings
of hazy smoke, carried

to heaven on fragile flags
with scurries of penned whispers
that flap like fledglings
against the changing wind.