JUST DANCE

 

A few days ago, I let the rowdy third grade class into my wildly colorful, somewhat disorganized art classroom at St. Ann School. The assignment was to listen to several different genres of music as they were played, and draw pictures that represented how the music would you make you feel. Louie, who would be taken out of class soon to see the counselor for sever disciplinary and emotional problems seemed particularly restless,  I called him over and told him he didn’t have to draw if he would help me to pick the music. He seemed intrigued, and slid over by my side. He began to pick from the dozens of cd’s,, fast dance music, slow jazz, and whatever else caught his eye. Then he picked up a Mozart CD and I slipped it into the player. The class went quiet, as Louie stood in the center of the room and began to dance beautifully, gracefully, jumping, turning, smilling. His classmates, astounded by what they saw, their rambunctious friend awing them with artistic brilliance right before their eyes. I sat there completely and utterly amazed at how much I was blessed to be in his presence at that moment, how much life had been given to me this year through the eyes, ears, voices, and dances of small Latino children on the south side of Chicago. 

i just want to be in a place where they are speaking french.

a man, speaking french, with a navy blue suit on and blue eyes
and he is my husband, at my first book signing and we are going
to have incredible sex outdoors that night, or watch our children
in a play about saving the sun from the galaxy hunters of a distant
land.

i want to be a mother, holding the hands of little creatures
with bright purple band-aids on their playground battle wounds;
i want to teach them to revolt against the 9 to 5 and run with me
and their father and our community of almost nudists to europe,
south america, and other romantic locations.

i see myself watching the theatrical pieces and paintings of my
artistic students, who are finding their way, with my help, my
tired hands grasping a hand made mug filled with green tea
in the rehearsal room on a cold friday in late March.


i hear foreign voices and it makes me want to run back
to Valencia and chase the boy who stole my chocolate.

i want you to know, that no matter how far we get, i love
you. i love you.

i love you.

A man needs something he can hold onto

I still don't know what loves means 

i was laying on a rock near a polluted river last summer,

the sun beat down on my body, and your eyes were somewhere

between my forehead and hip bones.

this hurt confusion and loss of innocence has pushed

me into a discomfort, a wanting and longing for a 

sweet reunion that may never come.

when i give up, will you be there, walking on a pair

of stilts, accustomed to traveling, one year older

and wiser and further away from me.

i just want to go back over that bridge, naked

singing, running from 9 to 5, and finding your

hands resting somewhere between my forehead

and hip bones.

i think you might be gay, i think you might be afraid,

i think you might be the only answer to my sick

and lonely dreams. 

idealistic romance leaves me wholesomely 

hanging on to nothing at all but a memory

in a black box that read "ARTISTS"  torn

on my Chicago windowsill.

Someone may discover my talent, someone

may give me a job speaking, starting the revolution,

but I don't want to start it without you....