Alfonso "Sito" Sasieta

Guacharumba

after la Orquesta Aragón

with thanks to my dance community, DC Casineros

I succumb to the late 

night Checkers on Queens 

Chapel Road once again, 

being driven by the age

old conditioning to numb 

the not enough, which felt 

true enough when I held 

back the group for at least 

five minutes, having asked 

for help with a choreographed

doble-derecha during the guaracha 

section in which the faster 

tempo bamboozled my 

ear & I could hardly 

follow the clave.

Afterwards, 

in the Checkers lot, 

my thumb scrolls mindlessly 

as I search for the clip 

in which a British pundit 

can overwhelm the voices 

in my head that seem intent 

on filling the vacant lot

with clarifications, for example, 

that I am just a poet

& not a dancer, as I blare 

away the more nuanced 

truth that my vacunao 

has improved in the last 

18 months but is still clumsy, 

mistimed often & in need 

of novelty & play. 

From the driver’s seat, 

I can hear now how 

the omniscient speak—

cool mastery 

& perfect clarity, 

so self-assured in their tactics

that they can bullshit 

a take on soccer’s 4-4-2 

or the 3-4-3 in a casual 

v-neck or a perfectly fitted 

jacket, contrasting the plump 

packet of ketchup 

that spews red

onto the checkered 

paperboard that rests

on my sweats.

I turn up the dial

& welcome these thieves

of peace into my car.

They harangue me with capitalized letters

& urge me to steer 

clear of the awkward 

sites of grace, 

such as our dance 

studio in Northeast DC, 

where twice a week 

my rabbis hold space 

& mirror back 

the gyrating facts 

of my novice shimmy

& then call me to a messy 

humility that says 

fuck it— I’m here 

to learn how to dance.

Vamonos Pal’ Monte

after los Palmieri, Barry Rogers & Chocolate Armenteros

1.

After my family left the parsonage 

my German-American grandma

built a house on the outskirts 

of Carrollton. A practical woman,

she sketched a blueprint herself 

& then beat nails into the plywood, 

dwelling in the work beneath the shade

of sycamores, nursing shingles 

& measuring planks until one day, 

my scatter-brained grandpa 

grabbed the ladder & skedaddled 

into town, stranding her to the roof 

for more than a few hours & the look

on her face when he got back 

is still told around dinner tables 

& this home is on the hill

to which my papi zigzagged 

from Peru, having fallen for my mother 

in Chicago’s natural history museum 

in 87’. On Thanksgiving week,

having piqued my mother’s eye,

she sized him up & said—

vamonos pal’ monte. 

2.

After five hours of driving

through the corn fields & gray

orange bluffs, my mother’s station 

wagon huffed up the gravel 

driveway, arriving to the fabled 

monte, south of the congestion 

& frigid winds, & for once 

my father didn’t have to contend 

with the El, grinding his life to a halt 

at the Subway or the Hardees 

since two to three jobs 

was the norm until the turkey 

was done, & my hurly burly grandpa 

interrogated him about the llamas

in Cusco, inquiring about the colors 

of the potatoes, pointing to the longitudinal 

lines on the atlas & turns out the monte 

is quite far from home. Ceviche 

is never sold on Fish Fridays 

& the silence of the backwoods 

grates on the brown skin

of the güiro.

3. 

When hearing of his name, 

my Uncle Ed said—  Alfonso? 

You’re dating somebody named 

Alfonso?

4. 

Exhausted & overwhelmed 

by my grandpa’s inquisition, 

my father sat down on the couch 

& tried to gather up the pieces 

of himself. Then, quietly,

my college-aged mom 

walked into the living room 

& pressed her fingers into 

Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.

Cue the goosebumps 

& all the stories of back 

in the day when my mother

would Bach & Beethoven 

her way out of the dishes, night 

after night, just by sitting on a piano 

bench. It is hard not to crack

a smile when I imagine my papi’s

quiet delight & Uncle Ed’s teenage

scowl & how flirting is music

that is so hypnotic it lulls

you into the hills 

for good.

5. 

Sometimes, after a long night

at work, my father would plop 

onto the couch to sip a manzanilla 

tea & pick the blisters 

on his feet as my mother 

lost herself in the piano, merging 

into the foot pedals & staccatos 

so too the sonatas & duets

& when she plays it’s kinda

like she’s waiting for communion,

tongue poised below the lip, opening

for the Holy as she slides 

her fingers up the ribs 

of the piano. 

But this is just a warm-up 

for Sunday morning 

when the smoke 

of the organ pipes will rise

& the kindling of an old melody

will strike the matches 

protruding from my mother’s hands, 

igniting waterlogged Lutherans 

into Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King 

of Creation, while my sisters & I mozy 

our little behinds to a pew 

& grab a few bulletins 

before turning the burgundy 

book to page 790

& what is the significance of a hymn 

that summons the most rural parts

of my mind, recalling the smell

of perfume on an acolyte robe

that made my heart skip 

in the sixth grade? I suppose 

what is real is what is holy 

& my grandfather really poured 

water on my head & said 

I baptize you, Alfonso Miguel, 

& pronounced the names perfectly.

6.

I invoke God all the time, & all the time

God says, “You use my name in vain! 

Didn’t I tell you? I am like a 20-year-old 

who flirts without words.” I think this 

is why Vamonos Pal’ Monte is more

instrument than lyric. Of course,

this is not to dismiss that my father

was an urban Latino who heeded 

the lyrics, who headed for the hills 

& has stayed there ever since, & yet 

I am more interested in how 

the organ & campana both dwell

in the living room of the canon 

of salsa. The song was home. 

And the instruments were planks 

in my grandmother’s hands, bridging 

two worlds under one roof. 

How God enjoys the tune 

of miscegenation. God begins 

a wicked montuno in the sanctuary 

when no one is looking.

Presión 

after Maykel Blanco y su Salsa Mayor 

I present to you the flirting

trombone & the come-hither 

of tonight, the promise & drip 

in the land of milk & miel 

& this honey could be our raised 

relief, the topography where I clasp 

my hands on the wobbly clave 

of your body, until a chorus claps

us out of the trombone solo.

So, shall we sweeten the night

& disrobe slowly? We needn’t rush 

to the clanging cymbal. A tongue

needs time to become a piano 

tumbao, to apply all kinds of presión 

until we slide beneath the sheet

music & our bodies percuss.