Nothing In Pérez Galdós, Bécquer, Clarín, Alarcón, Juan Valera, or Fernán Caballero About This

by Guillermo Bowie

Image credit: Maruf Choudhury on Unsplash

Well Ruth,

I can’t tell you what I’m thinking

about, what we did now,

It’s hard to see what all of this means

By the time that I met you

My parents had created someone

With all of their well-meaning intentions

But that eighteen-year-old who had just left home

Had to grow up without other relationships

Completely without the formative connections that teenagers experience when doing things together

Not allowed to form connections or get to know anyone around him

And though they only had good intentions…

Well, Ruth, and you came along in August, immediately after the eighteen-year-old left home

I hadn’t had any of the influential relationships with others who were my own age

The person that you met had basically been in solitary confinement for eighteen years without any way

        of knowing this

What do you think that this meant?

***

Guillermo Bowie is a 10th generation descendent of Scottish immigrant to Maryland of 1705 John Bowie, Sr. In 2025 his 30 publications are in Maryland Literary Review, Maryland’s Academy Of The Heart And Mind, Northwest Indiana Literary Journal, Australia’s The Font: A Literary Journal For Language Teachers, Ohio State University’s Hog Creek Hardin, Shoegaze literary Magazine, Literary Yard, Heavy Crown Voices, The Gorko Gazette, Pulsebeat Poetry Journal, Children, Churches, And Daddies, Book Of Matches, Fowl Feathered Review, The Argyle Literary Magazine, Blue Collar Review, Underground Bookshelves, Bewildering Stories, The Wise Owl, Anemone Literary Magazine, Arrhythmia Magazine, Grey Sparrow Journal, forthcoming in redrosethorns journal, Pomona Valley Review, The MockingOwl Roost, INNSAEI Journal, Valley Verbomania, About Place, Triggerfish Critical Review, A Time Of Singing, and Chewers by Masticadores. His book “Confieso Que He Vivido” has just been released. Guillermo Bowie has a B.A. from Portland’s Lewis And Clark College, a M.A. from Columbia University, a second M.A. in Spanish from New York University, studied doctoral Spanish at Harvard University and did ½ of a Ph.D. in Spanish at the University of Oregon.