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Ballet Class, 2001 ByCarlinaDuan

Sasha has pink shoes. the ones
With the rubbery tops
That snap over, the ones that
lily pink lines
Across her feet.
She sprawls into class
Every day
Like some underwater
starfish, her skinny
Muscles puddle
over the floor.

I can't do the splits.
I eat spicy chicken sandwiches
By myself during our five-minute
Break, Sasha says
I am stinking up the room.
When Sasha turns her back,
I huff a breath of spicy chicken
Air at her, making sure
My spicy crumbs
Punch her yarn
Head.

of bones
That sweat, but my dad says
I can yodel
Pretty loud. My dad says
I can burp pretty loud, burp
Birdlike and flitting
Into my hands.

& ankle &
belly, we like to make songs
out of clacking our sugar-cube
muscles, puff up our chests
our club-winged
knuckles, my dad and me,
we both want to be king.

My dad and me, we have When I clap
Burping competitions sometimes, The floors with my white sneakers,
And I burp a burp of I am knocking together
Silver plates My wing-bones hard, all funk,
That clack, and clack, All silver sweat, want to
Spin all over the paneled Holler at Sasha:
Floors like Ifa ballerina
The sunlight that Is a bird, I can be pretty.
Crunches through the Ifa ballerina
Good & loyal windows Is a bird, she doesn't
Of our house. Have to wear pink shoes
To know
My dad and me, How to strut.