Within the dark fortress

of your immemorial waters

are the sands of a moon to be born.

Mediterranean of no tides, you hold

the vast audience of stars in a bullfight arena.

At night, on the shore, the ripples

come lapsing arabesques

in your Alhambra of shadows.

For eons encamped in caves of your gut

eels have thrummed guitar, wailed

as gypsy fires dance duende from earth

like poppies of blood

flaming Andalusian mountains.

And there, on the distant Castilian mesa,

your armored attacker of windmills

astride his dauntless horse

dreams adventure in despair.