Y en los suspiros decia el que la seca la llena
— Las Amarillas, Arturo Villela Hernández
It is a hot night when I take the stage,
A la tirana na na, A la tirana na no.
I know these steps, una lucha para mi,
a flutter in the lights, a flock of birds in
my head, a rhythm I can not step away
from. My home, my Guerrero, suffers
a loss, an absence, cuarenta y tres are
missed. When I look up at the sky —
could not see los pajaros cadernales,
I race to put on my dance shoes, I race
to hug my children, I race to count
the heads in my own classroom, I race
to say the names of forty three sons, gone
somewhere, engrave them on my dance
shoe tacones. I want a sanamiento, dress
up in a huipil, a yellow skirt, a field of yellow
flowers in my hair. I heard el gavilan say
“A mi hijo, le gusta bailar ballet folkorico,”
it echoes desde la costa de mi Acapulco,
across the mountains in Ayotzinapa,
up this border. I let the pañuelo flicker
around the air, the bird that flows,
buscando respuesta, un nido, un respiro.
A la tirana na na, A la tirana na no.
He came to find his son, to ask for help,
to dance a cumbia with me, to watch us,
came to watch me dance Las Amarillas,
and every step was a pounding fight with
shadows, the longest I have ever danced.
I can’t watch the rostros in the crowd,
feel the tears well up on my face, I keep
the beat, close my eyes every few breaths,
look around, think I see el pico pico,
a young normalista, bring his own paliacate
and share a dance with me. It is an ofrenda,
una llamada, an echo, a marcha, a fogata,
a fight, a linterna, a flare, a beckoning, a rezo,
a pause, un movimento led with a simple
handkerchief. I made this gavilan, Clemente,
cry that night, hypnotize him with a bandada
that glows, makes his heart swell, remind him
of a brilliant picture, a tarima and his son, caught
up in a dance, watch his lips as he mentions
his son, that all our sons will dance once more.
Photo of Lupe Méndez
Originally from Galveston,Texas, Lupe Méndez works with Nuestra Palabra: Latino Writers Having Their Say, the Word Around Poetry Tour and the Brazilian Arts Foundation to promote poetry events, advocate for literacy/literature and organize creative writing workshops that are open to the public. He is an internationally published poet, a CantoMundo Fellow and MFA in Creative Writing student with the University of Texas at El Paso.