Sacred Flesh: Flowering of Delight & Blush of Pleasure

20050311

Flowering of Delight & Blush of Pleasure

The Discovery of Sex

We try to be discreet standing in the dark
hallway by the front door. He gets his hands
up inside the front of my shirt and I put mine
down inside the back of his jeans. We are crazy
for skin, each other's skin, warm silky skin.
Our tongues are in each other's mouths,
where they belong, home at last. At first

we hope my mother won't see us, but later we don't care,
we forget her. Suddenly she makes a noise
like a game show alarm and says Hey! Stop that!
and we put our hands out where she can see them.
Our mouths stay pressed together, though, and
when she isn't looking anymore our hands go
back inside each other's clothes. We could

go where no one can see us, but we are
good kids, from good families, trying to have
as much discreet sex as possible with my mother and father
four feet away watching strangers kiss on TV,
my mother and father who once did as we are doing,
something we can't imagine because we know

that before we put our mouths together, before
the back seat of his parents' car where our skins
finally become one-before us, these things
were unknown! Our parents look on in disbelief
as we pioneer delights they thought only they knew
before those delights gave them us.

Years later, still we try to be discreet, standing
in the kitchen now where we think she can't see us. I
slip my hands down inside the back of his jeans
and he gets up under the front of my shirt.
We open our mouths to kiss and suddenly Hey! Hey!
says our daughter glaring from the kitchen doorway.
Get a room! she says, as we put our hands
out where she can see them.

by Debra Spencer,
from Pomegranate.
Hummingbird Press

Rumbera

Music, Musica
It sets my hips free
free from society telling me who to be
my hips, find their rhythm,
shimmying wildly.

musica y ritmo has freed my soul,
it taught me how to challenge the gender roles;
freed me from repressives religions and their silly rules;
freed me from an imprisoned me who was afraid to be herself.
Music has been my liberation.

When I hear the music speak
it flushes over me
moving me,
my body adjusting to every beat.

Se siente el palpitar
se une la musica y el corazon en una sola cancion
El espiritu se mueve, se libera, al oir el tambor.

La gente asombrada comenta a mi alrededor
"Eso se trae en la sangre"
"Eso es de herencia"
"Mira quie bien se mueve la gordita"

Sigo oyendo los ritmos, mis guias, mis maestras,
las me enseñaron a ser una muxer segura,
una muxer liberada,
una muxer que desafia a la sociedad y te reta a bailar.
Una muxer que no teme bailar sola,
y cuando baila con pareja, ella es la que guia.

Muevete asi, muevete asa,
I hear la Rumba say
baila, meneate,
muevete y liberate muxer.

~Emily Villagrana

"And you, are you so forgetful of your past, is there no echo in your soul of your poets' songs, your dreamers' dreams, your rebels' calls?"
~Emma Goldman