You remember the flamenco costume
of Halloweens past, flaming orange with black fringe
and the great white comb your mother pinned
in hair short as a boy's. You sat on the toilet seat
as she raked through the tangles, and imagined
the bullfighter you'd grow up to marry.
He would have a narrow waist and sparkling epaulets,
a cape of velvet to swirl over the bull's
angry head. Even now as you hide away in your room,
stereo blasting "Bamboleo," you read postcards
from your sister in Madrid and dream of boys
with names like Enrique, Roberto, boys
less pimply and paler than the ones you let kiss you
at the movies or in the car coming home.
Wearing your mother's faded mantilla
you dance before the mirror and wonder
how much it would cost to cross an ocean.
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