Sheila Maldonado

CHA CHA DIGREGORIO LIVES

evil Danny Zuko draws me out  
black dress flowered   deceptive
turquoise ruffle rage 
icy flamenca 
swarthy 
to be discarded

yet while I'm here I will devour
demonstrate
tame a loose planet  
chop swoop 
scoop Sandy’s man 
in the orbit of my skirt 

I straddle and am straddled 
I grind and am ground 
two step and twerk
panties décolletage flashed 
dark 'fro and to 
to and fro

I have lived to 
give the blonde some tips
when she gets Danny back 
she goes bad
curls black like me
  leather dipped
aware of hips
the trajectory they offer
to aimless bad boys 

SMOKE RING

that’s what you get
for thinking a vaporizer was an engagement ring
he wasn’t on his knees he was opening his car trunk
that wasn’t a ribbon undone that was a black plastic bag
that sapphire wasn’t a rock it was a shaft
those weren’t vows that was vapor
that wasn’t vapor that was smoke
a bill of smoke a ring of goods 
a haze a daze a mirror
what he wanted you to see
what you get for believing 
that wasn’t a promise that was a cough

Sheila Maldonado is the author of the poetry collections one-bedroom solo (A Gathering of the Tribes / Fly by Night Press, 2011) and that's what you get (Brooklyn Arts Press, forthcoming, 2021). She is a CantoMundo Fellow and a Creative Capital awardee as part of desveladas, a visual writing collective. She teaches English for The City University of New York and is an associate poetry editor for Tribes. She was born in Brooklyn and raised in Coney Island. Her family hails from Honduras. She lives in uptown Manhattan.