WEBVTT

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This is called, "My
Spanish Children."

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It's basically about a trip that
we took at one time to Spain.

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Though it's about other
things I hope, as well.

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"My Spanish Children."

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"In my mother's
home, my daughters

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are little Spanish girls, like
the nice Spanish woman who

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years ago saved me and my
baby brother from the hail,

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running out of her house holding
up a blanket over his soft spot

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when the stroller wheels
caught on the curb.

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So I hoped in Spain my children
would feel some homecoming,

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but no look of welcome
met my daughters

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on all the streets of Spain.

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Matrons my mother's age stopped
short with the eyes of Franco

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inspecting the indigenousness
of their shoes.

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Only gender made one
native in Madrid.

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When my two-year-old
son wanted onion,

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smiling waiters brought
him a whole one as white

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and round as an
American softball,

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then quartered it
with a single cut.

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The slash of a sword
knighting his shoulder,

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the pungent petals of patrimony
spreading upon his plate.

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In Avila, when my daughter
wanted strawberries,

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the waiter held out his
empty hand, then brought

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a bowl of withered
bananas, which

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cost more pesetas than I
care to figure into dollars,

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and which no one would eat.

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On the sun train
leaving the country,

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we went reluctantly
to the free breakfast,

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expecting a slab of
bread for the boy

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and a small fortune
for the rest of us

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to be able to wash it
down, but instead, there

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were trays, one for each child,
orange juice, croissants,

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pain de chocolat, and another
family with tousled hair.

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When the woman smiled
at my daughters,

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it came home to me
that we must have

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crossed the border sometime
while we were sleeping.

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[LAUGHTER]

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Our bones jostling
in the narrow bones,

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our hearts jangling like pocket
change in God's uneven hand."

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