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TYLER SMITH

A Nightmare, Featuring Lorca

Ginsberg saw you in a supermarket in California,
fingering the watermelons.
He just wanted you to get to Whitman.
He used you.
I hate to be the one to tell you this.

Pero, tú va a ser mio esta noche, Lorca, mi fantasma—mi pesadilla.
Pues, ponme frio.
I wrote that on the street. Like a desperate boy might write to you.
I dreamt of you, bloody, on that fence.
Cogido, within your death.

How dare you wake me up in Spanish?
I have things to do.
Sing it out.
That picture of you, one of the only ones;
you are wearing a tuxedo.

I saw them kill you tonight,
the Nationalistas. They laughed at you.
You smiled at them.
The pain made everything alright, invisible.
You were thinking of Granada. You kissed your cross. . .before you knelt.

I breathed your last breath, tonight.
I picked you up; carried you off.
I never found the supermarket.
You had to rush off,
to wink at Whitman.
To finger the watermelons—so good in the summer.



Tyler Smith received an M.A. in Creative Writing in 2004 at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Previously, he worked as an AP journalist in Madrid, Spain in addition to stints as an editor and freelance writer in New York City. His works of fiction and poetry have been featured in Square One , The Bullfight Review and Monkeybicycle. (tstoddard@hotmail.com)


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