Capture of Antoñito el Camborio on the Seville Road

To Margarita Xirgu

Antonio Torres Heredia,
son and grandson of Camborios,
holding a willow-switch
is going to Seville to see the bulls.
Dark as a green moon
he walks. Unhurried. With style.
His curls’ peacock sheen
glints between his eyes.
Midway through his journey
he cut some round lemons
and threw them one by one in the water
until it turned gold.
And midway through his journey
under the spread of an elm
a patrol of Civil Guard
grabbed him by the arm and led him off.

*

The day goes past slowly,
afternoon fastened at the shoulder,
a bullfighter’s cape
passing over sea and rivulets.
The olives await
the Capricorn night,
and a snappy breeze jumps
the leaden hills like a horse.
Antonio Torres Heredia,
son and grandson of Camborios,
walks without his willow-switch
between the five three-cornered hats.

*

‘Antonio, who are you?
Had your name been Camborio
you’d have made a fountain
of blood with five jets.
But you’re the son of no one,
no true Camborio.
The gypsies have gone
who travelled the mountain alone.
Old knives shiver
beneath the dust.’

*

At nine in the evening
he’s taken to a cell
while all the Civil Guards
drink lemonade.
And at nine in the evening
they lock his cell door,
while the sky gleams
like the flanks of a colt.