you’re walking home down the cold dark street and as you pass the place on the corner you hear the rapid arpeggios being skillfully drawn from the guitar and stop mesmerized by the skill of the musician and the passionate voice of the chords, and the bar man sees you through the window and beckons at you with a chiding grin on his face to enter and be greeted inside with warm candlelight and more open smiles and the long silky ears of a big sweet basset hound and exuberant Barcelona “tttthhhhssss” sliding through the air and the Spanish ladies that confidently take the floor with sultry eyes and languid hands and encourage you out to join them in smooth hips rolls and graceful flourishes and joyful appreciation of tempestuous music and then names are shared and compliments and teasing woven through talk of San Francisco and Barcelona and Berlin and change and age and your bed calls again again and you leave promising to return tomorrow, and you will, because there’s magic in the night here and it blossoms with glowing delight in cozy little pockets just waiting for you and to be there.