This is called, "My Spanish Children."
It's basically about a trip that we took at one time to Spain.
Though it's about other things I hope, as well.
"My Spanish Children."
"In my mother's home, my daughters
are little Spanish girls, like the nice Spanish woman who
years ago saved me and my baby brother from the hail,
running out of her house holding up a blanket over his soft spot
when the stroller wheels caught on the curb.
So I hoped in Spain my children would feel some homecoming,
but no look of welcome met my daughters
on all the streets of Spain.
Matrons my mother's age stopped short with the eyes of Franco
inspecting the indigenousness of their shoes.
Only gender made one native in Madrid.
When my two-year-old son wanted onion,
smiling waiters brought him a whole one as white
and round as an American softball,
then quartered it with a single cut.
The slash of a sword knighting his shoulder,
the pungent petals of patrimony spreading upon his plate.
In Avila, when my daughter wanted strawberries,
the waiter held out his empty hand, then brought
a bowl of withered bananas, which
cost more pesetas than I care to figure into dollars,
and which no one would eat.
On the sun train leaving the country,
we went reluctantly to the free breakfast,
expecting a slab of bread for the boy
and a small fortune for the rest of us
to be able to wash it down, but instead, there
were trays, one for each child, orange juice, croissants,
pain de chocolat, and another family with tousled hair.
When the woman smiled at my daughters,
it came home to me that we must have
crossed the border sometime while we were sleeping.
[LAUGHTER]
Our bones jostling in the narrow bones,
our hearts jangling like pocket change in God's uneven hand."