A man doffs his cap to the streetcar,
smiles at Ricardo de Baños, who operates
the camera machine. He balances
a silver box, cantilevered handles tipped in wood.
Leaning out, he’s an early modern, hurdy-gurdying.
The Spanish-made steel grinding beneath the streetcar
whistles (I’m thinking) toward the Barcelona hills.
The people who wave to the camera are gone.
Their bodies inaugurate a species
that waves to itself. The sped-up film
makes them look the way everything feels.
On the Avinguda de la República Argentina,
a man strides out of tree shadow
to get a better look at me. I shake his hand
a hundred and four years ago.