DC PLACES ISSUE Sami Miranda   THE TECATA DANCES ON PARK ROAD 1 The stained glass martyrs are the only ones who see me dancing they stare from the windows that imprison them everyone else who passes is blind to my nakedness they cannot see the way my bare feet shuffle across cement until they bleed out my addiction to these saints who don’t judge my skeletal frame, they know love’s thinning when you’re strung out on it so they smile as I heat up the pavement with my Saturday night at Habana Village steps. 2 I dance in front of the Baptist church so that God can see I’m grace-full and send me ten dollars ‘cause I’m two steps from need and three steps from opening up the bidding. 3 In front of the botanica the smell of incense and the memory of drumming make my body spasm as if I’m being mounted so I stop dancing cause today even the gods are going to have to pay Sami Miranda is a teacher at Bell Multicultural High School in Washington DC. He has an MFA in creative writing from the Bennington College Writing Seminars and has performed at the Kennedy Center and other local venues.   Published in Volume 7, Number 3, Summer 2006.   To read more by this author: Samuel Miranda