Song for the Barrio Swan

Marisol goes dancing on Fridays. She leaves at dusk, smelling of kiwi and tree branches, walking much taller in her black strappy pumps. She won’t come home until her heels blister. Later, she’ll say––These are my battle wounds, miren––as she shows us all that’s peeled open, what’s given way to the red tender flesh that bloodies her sock.

One day, we hope to be just like her. In the late afternoon, we flock in from the streets where we play, smelling of sun, soil, and sweat. We know that a shower is coming, a time when our mothers will rub orange peels on our elbows and knees, the high points of our bodies that the sun likes to darken. They’ll scrub hard, until it stings, trying to get us to brighten. But for now, we’ve come as we are to see Marisol.

We gather in her room, on her bed, where we sit cross-legged on her Hello Kitty blanket. Perched on a shag rug on the floor, she is painting her toes. There’s spunk to the color she’s picked: a nearly fluorescent shade of pink that isn’t natural to flowers. When she’s finished, she undresses, says, how about this––Qué piensan?–– and holds a cotton shirt to her frame, one that is small enough, we think, to fit one of us.

Oh, yes, we say, we love it.

Now what about this? she asks, and over her faded pink panties, she pulls on a short denim skirt. Between her shirt’s hem and the skirt, which hangs low on her hips, there are miles and miles of skin. A brown, brown stomach. A thin chain of gems that hang from her navel.

Yes, we say, and we pull up our shirts, tuck the ends into our collars. Jumping around on the bed, we dance to Akon and rub on our bellies. Marisol shows us some moves, how to circle our hips, how to trace a kind of shaking movement from our waists to our bottoms.

Somos sexy, somos muy sexy, we sing, and in the mirror, Marisol paints her eyes, her cheeks, then glosses her lips. She gives us some of this shine, dabs a little sparkle on our puckered mouths.

Not too much, she says, so your mom’s no se enojen.

Rubbing and pressing our lips together, we nod.

When she leaves, we follow her out like little ducks trailing a swan instead of their mother. Sitting on the sidewalk, we watch her walk away until she is very small, just a speck in the distance, and then eventually, nothing. Soon, our mothers will call for us, one by one, from the front patios. Any minute, they’ll say, Niña, it’s time to come home.