by José Enrique Medina
Part 1: My dream name is Sinfalda
Beneath a purple sky, drifting
in my canoe, I pluck the word
like a white lily from the smooth face
of the Lake of Smoke.
This isn’t a romantic story although it may sound like one with mist and flowers and boats. It’s only a way of telling you how stamens fall apart; how this boat moves a body from one place to another.
My paddle dips—a gentle splash—and I glance over the edge. In the water, a man stares back. Fallen eyes. Sagging lips. Se mira como un hombre sin falda. He looks like a man without a skirt. He looks like a man who wishes his canoe were brocade, stiff with beauty, but they don’t let him wear skirts and they don’t let him grow his hair. He looks like a man whose body is a prison and everybody tells him, “Wear this, don’t say that.”
Sin falda. The phrase echoes
like a ripple, washes over me.
The three syllables ring
like the name of a lady
destined to pose in blooms.
Someone exotic and exciting,
a beautiful toga-draped heroine
in a Greek play. Sin falda.
On the cloudy water, those two words
close their petals and become
one single word. Sinfalda. I lift
the dream name like a white lily
and tuck it behind my ear.
Part 2: My waking name is Quique
“Avoid faggots,” Abuela says.
“El Diablo will skewer the wrist swishers
over Hell’s fire.”
Before I enter her house, I lift my hoodie and cover the white lily in my hair. The hoodie drops its shadow across my eyes, and I feel my fists curl into weapons, left hook like Chávez, turning me into Abuela’s grandson, Quique—the king of the ring in my dusty pueblo. Thirty fights, not one lost. They cheer as I unravel the face of the prettiest man I’ve ever seen, the champion from the next town over, his mouth still soft even as it bleeds.
Forged in sweat and grit,
I skip rope,
slam leather into Polo’s pads,
my Tía Tencha’s husband,
until my knuckles sing,
lift steel with arms like coiled wire,
as if strength could steady
something loose inside me,
as if each rep might press it down.
I spar with men thick with years. Their weight shapes my rhythm; my hands learn to rearrange the world, bone by bone. I slip, I strike, I press soft ribs to the ropes until pain blooms into power. In the showers, I turn away from the glisten of brown skin, the gentle slope of backs, and let the water blur my eyes until the ache quiets.
Without the white lily,
I can no longer pose and pout.
Without beauty eclipsing hate,
only punches and teeth fly.
Without my alter ego,
I deepen my voice like a prayer,
flex arms against anything soft
so the flower inside my locker
doesn’t open,
doesn’t unfurl its petals
and give me away.
Part 3: If I want to be bird
If I want to be bird, they won’t let me.
If I want to sing, they won’t let me.
“Sorry, Abuela, what did you say?”
Does a tule tree
ask permission to reach the clouds?
If I want to sashay, they won’t let me.
If I want to grow my hair
and comb it with a diamond comb, they won’t let me.
If I want to flirt—
“Hey cabrón,” Abuela says,
snapping her fingers. “Wake up.”
“Sorry, Abuela, I was dreaming.”
She grabs my cheeks. “Ay, stubborn boy, stop dreaming so much. You’re always thinking about bitches, bitches, bitches—putting your mouth between the legs of women and shaking your face. Better that than ending up a maricón like your papá. A man must plant both feet in the earth. Otherwise, the wind will carry him away like soot. Will you be my little hombre? Will you stay grounded?”
“Sí, Abuela.”
If I want to plié in my canoe
and watch the lake hold my shape,
they won’t let me.
Then she slaps my head.
Part 4: The gentlest voice
When I enter the cornfields, I wear the white lily and pose like a woman. The wind stirs gently, and the tall stalks rustle, a dry, papery hush like secrets being told.
I came to fuck. Married men come here when they don’t have money for putas. Some say shameful, unholy. But here, the wind moves through the fields in a language only leaves know:
You’re clean,
pure—like me.
Like me, you drift
and remain. You carry
no stain. I give myself freely,
and touch all things
as softly as a lover’s jaw.
And it’s the gentlest voice
I’ve ever heard.
Part 5: The wind is a liar
I feel dirty, dirty, dirty.
When I stepped into the cornfields, I strutted—all lily and light.
When I had sex with Federico, the butcher’s handsome son, I thrashed among the stars.
But now, he spits on me.
“Faggots disgust me. I’m not queer. I just needed to unload.”
Under him, I was Sinfalda, spinning in stardust.
But when his boot meets my ribs, Sinfalda vanishes, making room for his rage.
If I were Quique, I’d rise with fists, knocking him into tomorrow.
But I’m not woman,
and I’m not man.
I don’t look up.
I shape a pillow
from my hands,
rest my head
in the dirt.
I’m a person
waiting to happen.
Part 6: My cousins
Primo 1 and Primo 2 are ghosts.
No one can see the twins,
except me and Tía Tencha.
They died before they were born, but as spirits, they’re five years old. It makes me wonder. Do the dead keep growing after death?
They’re Tía Tencha’s sons, but they avoid her. She pinches them when they hover too close, calls them piedra, rock.
They perch on my shoulders, whisper what the dead do on the other side.
Tía Tencha scowls when she catches me playing with her sons. But I wipe my ass with her frown.
Primo 1 and Primo 2 say, ‘Quique,
show us how to box,’
so I jab, hook, dance in place—
precise as a shadow.
Primo 1 and Primo 2 say, ‘Sinfalda,
show us how to sew a skirt,’
so I slice flour sacks into ribbons,
stitch together something soft and holy.
Primo 1 and Primo 2 say, ‘Quique,
show us how to shave,’
so I tug my beard tight,
glide the blade without blood.
Primo 1 and Primo 2 say, ‘Sinfalda,
show us how to pirouette,’
so I stand on tippy-toes, raise my arms,
and dream of herons.
Part 7: The Bee Gees
Polo’s got a lion’s mane and a beard, like a Bee Gee.
Even in the ring, training teenagers, he struts in tight white bell-bottoms sweeping the stained canvas. His shirts, always white, always unbuttoned to the belly, spill coils of thick black hair like snakes escaping a wound. His ass, sealed in slick polyester, moves with the grace of a horse’s haunches, each cheek twitching its own stubborn rhythm.
Up front, the fabric kisses his crotch, presses his thing into a shape like a frog run over and left to jerk. The older boys copy him, collars popped, hips swaying, swaggering like the thing between their legs is just too big to hide. But none of them dares to disrespect him face to face. That face—scarred like a burned-out planet, cratered with old acne, dotted in pus-bright cherries. And his tongue? Sharper than shredded metal. Just standing near him, you feel the cut.
Part 8: I’m eight
I’m eight.
Smiling. Proud.
Finally, Polo brings me to his gym
to train.
The smallest gloves
still too big,
but he wraps my hands
tight with tape.
He pairs me with a boy
twice my size.
I’m like, “No mames.”
The other kid laughs,
“He’s a runt.”
Polo shrugs:
“Fight.”
A punch to my stomach
steals my breath.
I drop, curl up.
“Get up,” Polo says.
I rise, guard high,
but the other boy
jabs, then crosses—
I fall again,
and again,
until I stop standing,
make myself small,
a ball on the canvas.
Polo kneels beside me,
places a soft hand
on my shoulder,
and whispers,
“Let’s see if this gets you to stop
staring at my fucking verga.”
Part 9: The night the twins die
The night the twins die, the speedbag blurs, afterimages of hummingbird wings. I punch faster and faster until I’m airborne, untied from flesh.
The night the twins run down Tía Tencha’s legs and soak into her nylons, I max out the dead lift, break my own bench press record. My feet stutter for grip, as if they, too, could help lift the unsayable.
The night the twins vanish
into the ether,
I hang my gloves
and step into an evening
soft with violet.
I touch my chest,
astonished at how hard it is.
My arms: iron.
My sweat: lacquer.
My muscles: plated armor.
I make fists,
try on this new suit
of “Go to hell.”
I trace my abs,
the groove of my Adonis belt,
feel sealed in meat,
complete,
a singular thing,
needing no one,
nothing.
I want to say,
I’m Quique.
Sinfalda?
Sinfalda never existed.
But under the bruised sky,
walking calm and alone,
I don’t even need to say it.
Part 10: Clean like the wind
“Sinfalda, want some?” says Federico, the butcher’s handsome son.
“I’m not Sinfalda today. Today, I’m Quique. Today, I wanna top.”
“Ay, güey, I’m not into that shit.”
“Find someone else, there’s un chingo of sluts in these cornfields.”
Federico grabs Quique’s wrist. “You sure you don’t want some?”
“Let go, or I’ll fuck you up.”
“Damn. Didn’t know you were so macho out here. Thought you were only a man in the ring.”
“Get a clue.”
Federico caresses Quique’s fingers. “Never seen you like this. So dominant.”
A chocolate chip melts in Quique’s throat. He doesn’t swallow. He remembers how Federico erased him last time.
“La neta güey, I’ve never bottomed for a vato, but I’ve also never met one man enough.” Federico turns, offering his back.
A butterfly lands on Quique’s zipper.
Federico, the butcher’s handsome son, lowers his pants.
The sky spills new stars.
The night swells like a lily,
too large for Quique to hold.
Frogs plop in the mud.
Twigs snap under unseen feet.
Crickets drill for gold . . .
Afterwards—“Don’t tell anyone,” Federico whispers.
Quique leans over and kisses his cheek.
Federico’s tears clean his dirty lips, clean the past, clean what he did to Quique, until everything shines like a freshly scrubbed toilet.
Part 11: Circles
Polo isn’t a monster.
He doesn’t have more legs
than a garrapata,
more than a thousand hands
choking, dunking me
in darkness.
But—
if he is a monster—
it’s probably my fault.
I was four.
I climbed into his white van,
the one he used to sell elotes.
I don’t know why.
I fell asleep.
Then a man climbed in.
He woke me.
Something covered his face,
but I saw the hair—
a thick mane
falling over his shoulders.
The man without a face said,
“¿Quieres tocar mi paloma?”
Paloma. Dove.
That’s what he said.
Do you want to touch my dove?
Something covers his face.
Something covers the memory.
Something covers my name.
Day after day
I grip the pen tight
and draw circles,
circles,
circles—
trying to scrawl
the monster’s name—
pressing harder each time,
until the desk shakes,
until the paper tears
like skin
and I wake.
Part 12: I don’t tell Abuela
I don’t tell Abuela:
When the twins can’t sleep, when nightmares drag them under what you did to them, they crawl into my bed, whispering, ‘We need you, Sinfalda. Hug us.’
But Abuela tells me:
“When I’m gone, Quique—
selfish boy—
promise you’ll take care of Tencha.
Take good care of her, like I did.”
I don’t say:
You took good care of her? You who pinched her arms, made her kneel on raw pinto beans in the public square—your voice like a whip, “Piedra, piedra, piedra.”
Abuela does say:
“Why do you avoid Polo, mijo?
Such a generous man.
After your mother died,
he took you for rides,
showed you a good time.”
I don’t say:
Polo is the man without a face. And I—I am the man without a skirt. One day, maybe, we’ll meet in a dream and make peace. But until that day, I prefer not to dream.
Abuela does say:
“Qué sad. God took the twins.
But it’s better this way.
This loca can’t care
for more locos.”
I don’t say:
You killed them with ruda, afraid they’d steal a bite from your plate, afraid they’d grow crazy like your daughter.
Abuela says:
“Sinful boy.
You should go to church.
Find a good woman.
Get married.”
I don’t say:
I worship in the cathedral of the cornfields. I pray in the church of the wind. And I am clean, clean like the wind that sweeps through our lives.
Abuela says:
“Quique, what’s that
behind your ear?”
She yanks off my hoodie.
“A flower? A lily?
You were going to give it
to a puta, weren’t you?
No putas for you. No. No. No.”
She grabs the lily
and smashes it on the table—
again
and again
and again
until it’s pulp.
José Enrique Medina earned his BA in English from Cornell University. His poetry collection Haunt Me won the 2025 Rattle Chapbook Prize. His work has appeared in Best Microfiction 2019, The Los Angeles Review, Tahoma Literary Review, and many other publications. He is a Voices of Our Nations Arts (VONA) fellow, and the founder of Chickens & Poetry Residency for Writers.