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Sant Feliu de Guixols

Women made the fishing nets
valued throughout northern Catalunya
like the black lace
they specialized in knitting

fine and delicate.
Manuel Zalvide in charge of licenses
punished fisherman
if they were caught using any others

from this town on the Mediterranean
named after a preacher man
from northern Africa, Felix, who was
rescued by two angels from drowning.

Women performed their own miracles
worked in factories to manufacture
cork stoppers
for wine and oil but couldn’t stop

the town’s port from being bombed
repeatedly
during the Spanish Civil War
a gateway to the island of Mallorca.

Now tourists eat gelato
gather plates of tapas
late into the evening
swim at the playa

where the sea wall
looks like Jupiter’s child
had spilled her blocks on the way home
all the letters washed away in the tide.