Sunset Salsa
Bodies burning like fire,
Red skirts and red flames.
Everyone moving.
Spinning round some
Invisible axis.
Smashing and crashing,
Imploding like atoms.
Body to body,
Hip to hip, breathless,
Slick sweat running down
Bare backs. Strangers
Moving like lovers,
Each of them pretending
To love the other back.
Tutoring
I was never any good at math.
Doing sums was like
Reading hieroglyphics;
The longer I stared
At the page, the more
Peculiar they appeared,
Like a chain of code designed
To keep spies like me at bay—
A turncoat who couldn’t
Tell you the difference between
Square roots and fractions
And only knew enough
To count change and settle debt.
Of course, my father
Never knew. He was too
Busy seeing himself in me
And I was too scared
To admit that I never
Saw myself in him,
Both of us unwilling
To let the other down.
Doing our best work
When he’d help me out with
Homework and I’d pretend
That I didn’t need his help.
RESURRECTION mag 