Wave

Saturdays in the rented hall
the dance teachers show us
how to loop synthetic straw
for making hula skirts.
It’s the first time our new-
new bodies learn how joints
swivel, how the hip loosens
from its cage. A hand cups
the ear and the other pushes
away— meaning water, or
a voyage, or goodbye.
When the room fills with people
we don’t know whose eyes sweep
up and down and across our bodies,
who is it we’re waving to?