the most beautiful thing was white people 

           dancing on tv. the girls in american high school novels

always talked about dancing –

           the first time i felt the pulse 

of my body, i was eight in the living room,

           my hips learning 

                      their girlish music.

                                 my father came down the stairs:

 

oi! don’t do that! that’s sex! and i never heard

           my hips sing again. i wanted to be reborn

in america, open under some colder

           sky. a group of people swaying their bodies

is a ritual. an invitation

           to be blessed. 

                      the first time i learned my body

                                 was an offering

 

i held it in my groundward toes.

           in high school, the dance instructor only used me

to fill the back row. you’re just not

           a very good dancer. i wanted to direct

his gaze to the years

           i begged my mother

to put me in ballet classes.

           i was never

 

a very good dancer. 

           to be desired, the body has to forget

itself. i could never.

           the first time a man wanted my body i tried

to forget it. if i wouldn’t swallow, he would

           sulk. does the pull out method work?

                      i don’t know, only that i didn’t

                                 get pregnant those two years

 

and protection meant i didn’t love him

           enough. language was invented to make

prophecy and keep inventory – every interaction is prediction 

           or cataloguing. maybe orgasm is both,

divining the power of a body 

           in surrender. 

                      asked to speak 

                                 a language it never learned,

 

my body was used as barter. i never learned thrashing

           could be response. 

in the american novels, girls talked about giving

           the joy of your body to a man. it always happened

after some school dance. and so my inability to dance

           meant i was not ready to gift. i could not thrash. 

i never said yes.

 

if we were taught to think about penis

           as enlarged clitoris, he might have given me

himself. i still don’t know what the chinese call

           clitoris. maybe female pleasure is for white girls 

who place their bodies forefront. years later, i started to demand

           my satisfaction, 

                      opened my legs

                                 to the rapturous state

 

of dancing in my room alone

           to blondie. a moan comes

from where all want begins

           to seek escape. 

i learned to dance late, from the spanish girl 

           who wrapped me by the waist, 

                      held her hips to mine

                                 and said follow me. 

 

gently, our hips curving 

           with the front-back step,

in her my first

           real surrender.