To the actor portraying Federico Garcia Lorca By Trish Saunders

On the afternoon of the day the Spanish poet was murdered,
you sat in the safety of your overstuffed armchair,
fanned yourself with dead palm leaves,
drank a dry Manhattan. Or a gin and tonic.
Let’s say it was Beefeater’s gin. 

You lay down for a nap after; wondered why beads of sweat
broke out on your brow though windows were wide open,
blankets flung on the floor. Meanwhile, the poet who wrote
of the city that never sleeps with iguanas was wide awake
in the back seat of the car, guessing what waited for him.
You were 20 in 1935. Like the poet, you were gay.

You could not tell anyone of this, not a single family member
knew your secret. This concealment shredded your soul. You are
old now. You can leave Lorca now, dreaming of apples in his
Spanish grave and tend to your aged orchard, with trees
full of worms.

Trish Saunders lives in Seattle. She has poems and short fiction
published or forthcoming in Chiron Review, Main Street Rag, Gargoyle, the late lamented Fat Damsel Review, and here in the Rye Whiskey Review.