humming over something sugary or dead,

my vulnerability as the buck

I’d kill, then wrap myself inside,

my hair as switchgrass, twine, and nest,

a roving cloud my every limb.

Le Sacre du printemps

after Pina Bausch

At this time of night, the theater is empty:

draped in its velvet robes, echoing with ghosts

and applause. I’ve been tossing and turning

all night, as headlights flash across the ceiling.

Inside the ornate opera house, it felt close to midnight—

bottomless, like tonight—though it was the middle

of the day when I arrived and the usher

escorted me to my seat. An ocean of dirt

covered the stage. The dancers performed

underneath and on top of Stravinsky’s score.

With their bodies, they made another music:

full of lunges, panting, slaps, stomps,

and whatever sounds the body makes

when it yields to unyielding earth.

Men and women threw themselves on the fl or

and into each other: smearing their skins

with dirt, violence, and sweat.

I am restless. Tonight, I remember

I vowed to feel as alive as the woman

who, in a rite of spring, must dance herself

to death. Hair frazzled, clothes soiled, the fated

woman fell to the earth then sprang back up,

slashing the air and contracting her body as if

she’d been punched repeatedly. She fell

and danced, danced and fell, until she collapsed

for the last time. —The stage went black.

How quickly I walked into the bright day,

leaving her there, behind me. On nights

like this one, when I’m crazed by wakefulness,

and darkness sacrifices itself, anxious limb

by anxious limb, into the day’s endless mouth,

I steal the red dress from the dead woman’s body

and dance wildly, with such abandon,

the room turns stained, swirling, terrible, pink.

After the __________, I had the urge to dance

on the president’s grave. The dispossessed threw me

a belated quinceañera. My godmother wore a necklace

of the dictator’s teeth. She sliced an upside-down cake, licked

her forefinger, and said, You have mastered sadness, querida,

may your rage be sticky and sweet. My father off red

his hand—this time I took it. We glided like

ballroom dancers across the red dirt fl or. He wore

a grave expression. I embraced him tightly

so as to cloak my face. Instead of a toast, he handed me

a handkerchief wet with tears. My father circled

the guests silently, dabbing gently each of their cheeks.

This too was a dance unfolding. I folded the handkerchief

into a fist and raised my fist like a glass of champagne.

The pain in my father’s eyes sparkled like the sequins

on my tattered gown. If it hadn’t been so ugly,

it would’ve been beautiful. The party ended just as

the world had: with the sound of rain beating

against the earth and each of us on our hands

and knees, peering into pools of mud and thirst.

II.