Breakdance

The woman in the tie-dye shirt

drops the lid of her water bottle.

Oh I see, she must be in charge.

A little girl rests on the floor;

colors with washable bold markers

right outside the door.

The woman gets out,

the man in front of me in a wheelchair

can’t stop laughing

while we listen to “poetry therapy.”

He moves to a dance I don’t know;

he faces the ceiling, coos like a baby

opens his mouth ― I hear his breathing

drops his head, splitting the tempo.

This isn’t, what CHAMACALLIT, is it?

Must be his way to Breakdance

I’m thinking.

His body hangs only for two seconds;

he sighs and up he goes again

as if trying to bite grapes from a vine.

I taste them too.

The woman is back

laughs, coughing this time,

jokes, hits my right arm,

shushes the little girl,

asks a question, walks away.

The man sticks out his tongue, his long tongue,

says ahhh, he must need som’thn ― ha?

He forces my curiosity; are those three

bags that hang on back of his chair full of his papers?

I don’t dare put my fingers on them.

He makes his sudden movements

looks at the front of the room

touches an apparatus, listens to the poem,

turns his head around, shows me his enormous emerald eyes.

His other self tries to bite me; bites me

but only to show me that he is imagining

a line for his new poem.

I want to see him in his other life;

helping the woman dance samba cubana,

picking, washing, eating the grapes,

holding hands with a woman and the little girl

walking to the park to write in his journal.

Gianina Opris