Legends of Old Castile

Mother's announcement of our good friends' departure

was held back by a morsel of potato farl lodged in her throat,

which stifled all life from her sad little person.

A fly rose from its nap in a flowerpot in the breakfast room

and, with its blue uncertain stumbling buzz

amped to the max, drove everyone out of their minds.

We had fetched up hereabouts happily enough,

though lingering inclinations elsewhere were still moist with life.

None of us could believe what happened next.

The flowerpot had offered Javier a nosegay for Mother,

whose eyes had turned to Chinese metal balls

with tongues of flame from the gas logs bouncing around inside.

Javier clicked his heels and bowed and dropped

the flowers in Mother's lap, leaped back

and clicked through the French doors into the hall

so elastically backwards none of us noticed

that he was not departing like a normal individual.

Then Domingo and Sandoval did the same,

after magisterial bows and conclusively artful clicks

out into the courtyard, down the cinder path,

beyond the gardens, the maze, the orangery,

all the way to the village and the train station.

Entering with tea tray bearing teapot, cups, marmalade, scones,

came pigtailed, rose-cheeked, white-frocked Magdalena.