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Christopher North

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Taino

(Federico Borrell Garcia, “Taino” from Benilloba, near Alcoy was photographed at the moment of his death in a skirmish at Cerro Muriano near Cordoba by Robert Capa on the 5th September 1936. The photograph ‘Falling Militiaman’ became one of the best known images of the Spanish Civil War.)


He knew the ridge above Pico de Pedrera.
Each morning he saw the sun catch its flank –
that instant, just as the roosters started up.

Then came the rattling of blinds,
Inmaculada flicking water to settle the dust
and a sudden cracked note from the church tower.

Coffee, tostada with oil,
his older brother sprawled in the doorway
fiddling with a shotgun

and grunting at him when he stepped past
to catch the truck to the mill.
That’s how it had been day following day,

so he was surprised
at the force of his brother’s embrace
and the embarrassed, gruff kiss

when he stood at attention before him
polished and smiling
before leaving for Cordoba and the front.

His mother’s face grey, her smile of stone –
he’d not seen that before either.
Cards from the poker game with his younger brothers

were still splayed on the table –
there was a centimeter left in the wine bottle.
That was 1936 in Benilloba. It’s an Arab name.

 

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