Robo

" Was Andalusia here or there? On the land . . . or in the poem ?" —Mahmoud Darwish I must admit to this outright theft. Before the crickets could impede me, I reached outside my window to grab as much of Andalusia as I could in the palm of my hand. I took the evening's silver from the olive trees, the yellow slumber from the lemons, the recipe for gazpacho. I made a small incision in my heart and slipped in as much as my left and right ventricles could hold. I reached for a pen and a piece of paper to ease-out the land into this poem. I closed the small incision in my heart and closed the wooden shutters of my window.