Victoria Hernandez Dances

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