after John Koenig

after The Dead Toreador, Édouard Manet, 1864

1. All the art in Seville is making our eyes bleed. We cannot bear the beauty of another palacio of a million mosaics, or the clatter of one more café. We follow the swans around the bend, under a bundle of low leaves, into the soundless grove. I’ve told you already to go off and find yourself a young woman, someone who could keep up in this heat, but you were too busy fiddling with your camera battery to assuage my neuroses.
   
2. If I was afraid to come here with you, it’s only because I was afraid of what I might lose.
   
3. There is an old woman in flowing purple and red scarves, armloads of bangles, and sensible shoes. I do a double take, thinking for a strange second that I was passing some kind of mirror.
   
4. When I turn…