Machismo

When his sight finally failed, he would spend the afternoons sitting in a cane chair on the lawn that sloped down to the river. Sun supporting his back, he faced the water listening to the subtleties of the sea that the tide brought sixty kilometres inland.

Later she would bring him camomille tea & small triangular cucumber sandwiches. He would remove the thin green & white slices, replace them with pages from Octavio Paz’ Piedra del Sol that he exorcised from the book with an elongated left little fingernail, folded them so they would fit the bread, & then ate them slowly.

She had often offered to read the poem to him, but he preferred it in the masculine voice.