Rose teaches us how to stomp!
heel
toe—baby-zapateado real slow, then dance
faster, más recio like we’re wrecking the floor.
Jaime teaches us how the skirts flow,
faldas singing arcoíris like arias, kaleidoscopic
as they blur repetition into prismatic magic,
fabric vortexing in or butterflying out:
flashy, merry-hued flores from Jalisco.
I learn suave & hard, duro y soft,
grow maduro for you con la dulzura of each folk song.
They mature us with bandanas y sombreros,
machetes for Nayarit, age us when they hammer
tintinnabular nails into the tips of our boots—
how they percuss folklore into the studio’s wood-plank floor,
carve scars, sculpt landscapes with calabaceados.
Our machetes commune beneath our kicking botas
like dads clinking glasses,
clank-clank! behind our espaldas,
flying
as we toss them to our partners.
We are eager to catch, to feel like we could halt any espada
mid-air—aquí, I learn to grip violence like a relic. Para ti,
I’m taught the carnal boom & bang of el baile
emerges when we soothe that violence
then bloom—
The instructors help us twirl,
each girl on a two-finger axis blossoming
a field of faldas into half-medallions of poinsettia
red, mango yellow, & jicama-flesh white:
one-two-three & uno-dos-tres, swooshing
whirlpool-breaths of garment.
We messes of brunette braid-buns & gilded sombreros
lean into steps: stomp, kick, point, stomp kick swoop, &
hop, tán-tán! Y un grito: aaaaaa-ja-jaa-jaaaiii
as we turn in three shuffles. Ebb & flow—flow y eso!
Put on a show: rainbow, black, & oro—charro y reboso.
We learned danza. Folklorico.
I learned moves & movement.
I learned to grow into a burly zapateado,
a hipsway like a river’s lullaby.
I taught myself to hammer strides into sidewalks,
soften them with a half-sun sonrisa, my breath’s baile,
let the gold peeking through my unbuttoned shirt clank,
lean into my steps—lean into lips, as if choreographed.
Now lusty as mango maduro, I teach myself to twirl you
into bed, make whirlpools of sheets, flourish dulce sin daño,
create arias, clinks, and clang against flesh,
wreck myself against you: one-two-three & uno-dos-tres.
I teach myself what pounds, what points,
what poinsettias grow from us
when we spin, swoop, percuss—bloom as our blood
rushes lush when we brush against each other
unchoreographed.
I’ll let you teach me the sway of a new baile:
scoot me to new formations, show me a carnal grito.
Enséñame
how to grip the blade like a relic,
how to blossom my violent field.
Dress me how you want: give me botas to knock,
drip me in stiff charro to make mariachi music of you
or put me in a looser garment, una cascada
of ribbon, fringe, & algodón:
I’ll show you how to make a silhouette
of hips
swim—
I’ll teach you how to make a kaleidoscope
of me.
EROTIC CONTEST FINALIST, 2024
Alfredo Antonio Arevalo is a queer Chicano from Fresno, California. He received his MFA from The University of Alabama, where he served as an Assistant Poetry Editor for Black Warrior Review and received a poets.org University & College Poetry Prize. His poetry appears or is forthcoming in Atlanta Review, The Maine Review, The Cortland Review, Bilingual Review, and elsewhere.