Katacha Díaz is a Peruvian American writer. Wanderlust and love of travel have taken her all over the world to gather material for her stories. Her recent work has appeared and/or is forthcoming in Freshwater Literary Journal, 10 By 10 Flash Fiction, Galway Review, ZiN Daily, Amsterdam Quarterly, Big Windows Review, Anak Sastra, Visual Verse, among others. Katacha lives in the Pacific Northwest, near the mouth of the Columbia River.

Clicking Castanets

By Katacha Díaz

Humming, very softly, “Habanera,”
Exotic gypsy woman’s first aria in Bizet’s Carmen
With tambourines and clicking castanets,
a tantalizing gypsy dance in another place and time
— the Andalusian countryside,
a gypsy caravan fiesta in southern Spain

Flamenco guitars strumming, palmas, hand clapping,
With tambourines and clicking castanets,
Dos-à-dos, the young gypsies passionately lose themselves
to the magic of flamenco dancing,
Flirting shamelessly with Spain’s romantic painter
— Francisco Goya.
Seduced by the gypsies exotic beauty and mesmerizing dance,
Goya joins the fiesta, rattling a pair of well-clicked castanets.

Humming, very softly, “Habanera,”
Exotic gypsy woman’s first aria in Bizet’s Carmen
With clicking castanets and gypsy-like masterful flirting,
a brilliant evening of gypsy song and dance in another place and time
— Santa Fe Opera production in the Land of Enchantment,
Carmen’s sexy seduction of Don José in the first act.

“Clicking Castanets” by Katacha Díaz. First published in Visual Verse:
An Anthology of Art and Words, March 2018, Volume 5, p 41.

Reprinted by permission of the author.