Valencia

A Spanish city, recession, heat, love.

In Valencia
Skinny people walk skinny dogs
With big balls
See that couple there?
Swagger past the shop that sells
Catholic relics naked nailed Jesus
Past the condom store all
Rainbow sex lollypop lust
She’s narrow
Like prison bars
Shoulder blades so sharp
They cut the dusk air
But the sway in her hips say
She don’t give a fuck ’cause
She owns nothin’ but the boy beside her
The one with his pants hanging
Halfway to his knees
And big, big sunglasses to hide
That he still feels scared sometimes

Their bare soled feet slap the Valencian pavement
Soak up dusty August heat
She has a hand in his back pocket
(maybe to hold his pants up)
He drapes an arm over her shoulders
(Maybe so her sharp bones don’t cut the air)
One free hand each, hers and his
Clutch frayed ropes for leads
Each walking something like a dog
More like a bag of bones and bristles and mean eyes
Between sunburnt buildings they weave
Cracked looming walls beat down gazes
And the buildings know these two are
Children of the street

But they don’t give a fuck
Just keep on keepin’ on, owning only
Each other
Not even the bone dogs with big balls
That’s just mutual convenience
A temporary
Retracting of claws

Behind sunglasses (his)
And mascara (hers)
They see, there, on the shaded park bench
Grandpa and grandma
Walnut-wrinkled hands
Entwined like ancient vines
Encased in stillness and time
Pa and Ma smell sex on the young ones
The dry river beds of their veins
Hum with remembered passion
Old woman’s skin flutters like eyelids long in sleep
Old man’s gaze tastes the sway
In the girl’s hips

Then, the young ones slide on
Into the Valencian night
And the Old Ones
Sew their silhouettes
Into their waking dreams.