Slippage in Andalucía

By Isobel Hodges
Oliver Townend/creative commons.

December. The pink sky oxidises;
shatters. I arrive in Cádiz
as votes are counted.

Vox. The ugly apparatus
of voice. Pulses amplify.
Even bone marrow
knows fear.

Observe with bated breath. Tendons shift
and scapulae convene.
Forty years clear of the régime
and yet, Vox,
on a platform of loathing
the clean-up in living memory.

Weighted descent takes more than
amnesia and collective shock
seems naive after
Bolsonaro, Le Pen, Salvini and Macri.

Madrid rains expose another
ditch of bones.
Not even the slaughtered
have sway.

Never again is a fading refrain
and seaweed chokes the surf
in the Bay of Cádiz.

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