I remember attending a poetry reading by Elise Paschen
at Black Dog Books in Zionsville, Indiana.
She started the evening by asking
if anyone had heard of Maria Tallchief.
I was the youngest person in the audience
to raise their hand.
I knew she was a famous ballerina.
I learned that evening that her daughter
became a famous poet.

I don’t recall if her poems danced
or if they were merely stuck in arabesque.
She probably doesn’t need her mother
to appear in all her poems, but it likely happens anyway.
You can’t ignore your mother dancing on TV
or across the kitchen floor on Saturday mornings
or making cameo frappés
between the stanzas of your poems.

I don’t need my poems to dance.
I prefer they have some rhythm,
some tempo from syllable to syllable,
a trembling of the knees and heart.
There’s a confidence in being akimbo,
the words ready to find their places
at a moment’s notice. There’s a hidden fortitude
keeping the lines balanced.
There’s a syncopation
where the brain and fingers
intertwine their thoughts,
float across the page,
and fall in love before you even realize
the poem has ended.