They say I never dance
at school assemblies—all the boys
wearing pressed and tucked shirts
and the girls, their hair pinned back
with clips and bows. But they don’t know
I dance with her in unlit spaces.
Under the bleachers in the corner,
she takes my hand and twirls me around,
embraces my waist with her thin, dark arms,
and silently dips me backwards.
Her body becomes a comma, and my heart,
sound flooding my ears, pauses when
she pulls my body so close to hers,
then steps away, and I breathe
the Salsa beats again, watch her hips sway,
a primal music pulsing in my veins.
She burns deep,
deeper in my belly.
And no one knows
how our love is beats
and melodies and doesn’t need
to speak or be seen.
You never dance,
they say. But I do.
I dance and dance and dance.
© Ami Mattison
