Death of Antonito el Camborio

To José Antonio Rubio Sacristán

Voices of death sounded
by the Guadalquivir.
Ancient voices encircling
a virile carnation voice.
His boar’s teeth
clamped themselves to their boots.
In the fight his leaps
were slippery as dolphins.
He soaked his crimson tie
in his enemy’s blood
but there were four daggers
and he had to succumb.
When stars force lances
into grey water,
when novice bulls dream
of passes like wallflowers,
voices of death sounded
by the Guadalquivir.

*

‘Antonio Torres Heredia,
tough-haired Camborio
dark as a green moon,
virile carnation voice.
Who’s taken your life away
by the Guadalquivir?’
‘My four Heredia cousins,
sons of Benamejí.
What they envied in no one
they envied in me.
My wine-coloured shoes,
my ivory medallions,
and my skin massaged
with olive and jasmine.’
‘Oh, Antonio el Camborio,
worthy of an Empress!
Think of the Virgin
because you’re going to die.’
‘Oh, Federico García
call the Civil Guard!
My waist has snapped
like a stalk of maize.’

*

Three spurts of blood
and he died in profile.
A living coin which never
will be struck again.
A jaunty angel
lays his head on a cushion.
Others, weak blushes of colour,
light a lamp.
And when the four cousins
reach Benamejí
voices of death went silent
by the Guadalquivir.