Sin Nombre

I stopped to take his picture but I didn’t stop to ask
Cuál es su nombre?
Or to ask him what he was reading so intently
his finger still marking a passage of time

Leather and tweed
in La Lagunilla, the little lake,
a place my friend Richard calls ‘the Flea’
where lives are laid out for the next highest bidder

And then this man with his piercing blue eyes
like mine, his mother’s hands
like mine, his face carved
like the madera of the instruments he sells

Puedo sacar su photo?
I asked?

But I didn’t stop to ask his name.