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in Barcelona, I bought tickets for the flamenco
show for 8:00 but we really need to leave
by at least 6:30 to have a drink in the salon
if we want to take the Rodalies the ticket
machines can be quite finicky and the
email said to be there at 7:30 and we were still
late and sent to the help desk and I bought
tickets for the wrong day just like I thought.
I watched not the dancer but her shadow
on the wall gracing the busts of muses
leaning through the carmine mosaic until
a narrow man with a thin goatee I instantly
admired tapped his feet like the woodpeckers
my father would shoot. They were never afraid.
Maybe confidence is the calluses on your feet;
it’s pounding your skeleton through your heels.
Later, I play back the secret video I took beneath
my coat and listen to the applause, eyes closed,
again and again.
