Window Seat
WINDOW SEAT
Sitting beside him in the window seat as they
taxied for take-off at the end of the day, she was
nubile and pretty, as young as his daughter, nearly
perfect in the way of a late-autumn sunset distributing
itself over olive-brown skin, coffee-colored eyes, an
unmistakable aura of the concept of duende that interpreted
the mysteries of twilight and flight and the challenges of
life through the lyrical cadences of Andalucia,
Castilla-La Mancha, and Castilla-Leon
He remembered the first time that his
beautiful wife, the renegade rose in a botanical garden,
kept company with him on a visit to Spain:
She was apprehensive on the plane, excited in Madrid,
underneath him in Sevilla; she misbehaved in Barcelona,
and was full of questions in Granada that he answered in
Toledo while she replaced her scarlet lipstick standing
naked in the mirror
Philadelphia to Madrid takes six-and-a-half hours
at six-hundred miles per hour, the big Airbus jetliner navigating
the darkness beneath the fingernail crescent of a waxing
harvest moon, yet its running lights flashing and its reassuring
roar, were simply dissipating signatures like the fragrances and
curves of the sleeping girl beside him, swallowed along the
route by altitude and distance, by the perpetual fluctuations
of the unruly sea below, by the unexpected pleasures
of a marriage that really matters – like with that red rose
renegade who’s often naked in the mirror, always present
in their bed, and every day a guiding essence for
his aging, restless soul!
Duende (Spanish): (1) in flamenco - a spiritual or emotional
bond between performer and audience created by the performer’s
intense concentration and passion; (2) in general – authenticity of
emotion and expression – soul!
|