originally published by Public Pool, 2015
resurrected by HAD, October 2021

I am eating at the Matador Room on Miami Beach,
large framed posters of bullfighters hang on the walls.

Years ago, my uncle killed a woman in Spain.
A news article I found online reads the following:

(redacted) appeared before the court as the
“bastard grandson of William II of Prussia, the last emperor of Germany.”

He is, was, the most handsome of the three brothers
and had no German blood.

On the stand, he said,
of holding the knife before killing her,

“le hice un leve gesto a la muñeca,
como quien aparta una mosca de la frente”

it means,
I think

“I did a slight gesture to the doll, like
gently swatting a fly away from the face.”