Seville

The sadness of the evening you left me is the sadness of marble columns and horseshoe arches, the sadness of doorways, the sadness of ceramic fountains and cypress trees, the sadness of empires lost and empires found, the sadness of panting dogs, the sadness of soldiers occupying the mosque and citizens ransacking the synagogue, the sadness of burnt books and forgotten languages, the sadness of calligraphy, the sadness of steps too difficult to walk and fingers too distant to touch, the sadness of lips waiting to be kissed under a vaulted ceiling, the sadness of palmetto leaves and orange groves, the sadness of memories contained in the latticework of an empty room, the sadness of a crescent moon emerging in a darkening sky.

Craig Fishbane is the author of the short fiction collection, On the Proper Role of Desire. His work has also appeared in the New York Quarterly, Hobart, New World Writing, The Fabulist, The MacGuffin and The Nervous Breakdown.