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Siesta

Oh people not mine
what is it we can hear
the old custodian
coddles the tin box
in the empty church
the ex-monk clips
his lime tree just so
my soiled skin flensed
from my uniform
Jesus said to them
oh ye of little faith
Ayamonte is golden
the sun rakes over us
meticulous and slow
a mutt with cataracts
licks its parts ticking
Portugal lies exposed
on her soft cheap cot
passive and docile unlike
that bull that is Spain
the sea’s lips scold me
in that Spanish way
gentle and yet firm
nothing here is mine

Spencer Reece is the author of The Road to Emmaus (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014).

Themes

About this Poem

“I began this poem in the south of Spain one hot summer day, in a little town called Ayamonte. Siesta is such a religious sacrosanct act here in Spain and I wanted to memorialise it. Also my poetic Spanish hero Antonio Machado wrote a poem once with this title, and I think of him so often here and wonder what he'd think of Spain now so I wanted to summon him to my table.”
—Spencer Reece

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More by this poet

San Sebastian

Still singing in my cell
of succulents, staked by a man
who fled. Nothing personal.
How often I get that wrong…
I move on—

some man
is always fleeing, and that
is never personal. The longer
I go the fewer notes I need.
My torso a sort of hotel.
Martyrdom bores me.
My hook-ups a new flamenco—

will I be saved?
The peninsula tilts its goblets.
I am alone.
Wasn’t I always?
Swifts fleck the dry grass.
By my absence you’ll know me.

Spencer Reece

2016

Ponies

I remember the ponies in the distance.
I remember you talked of a war, no two wars, a failed marriage--
discretely, without force or grandeur.
This was before they amputated your leg, before the stroke.
You rolled your r’s, spoke of Oxford,
recalled driving in the Quaker ambulance unit in China,
where you saw an oil drum filled with severed limbs.
Pleased to have your approval, I rarely spoke.
You were like a father to me and I was grateful.
I remember the ponies behind the fence, muscular,
breathing, how they worried the grass.
The ponies said: This day astounds us.

Spencer Reece

2004

Homosexuality

After my mother and father fight, my father takes my hand and we walk down to the Mississippi where he smokes Camel cigarettes. He flicks his ashes away from me. He rarely says my name. All day on TV, I watch monks in Saigon douse themselves in gasoline and light their saffron robes on fire. When they ignite, they do not cry out. I study their silence to comprehend how a tongue turns into flame.

Spencer Reece

2004

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Siesta

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