“Ballerina” by Timothy Rodriguez

Face 3 by Mia Broecke

Ballerina

Ballerina czarina      
Under the bell jar
Freed from the fifth
Toe prim prima
Pilots to arabesque
Rising on grand jete
All in the sweep
Of twinkle music
Star dust until it falls
And she a still
Figure once more
Not part of the world asking
Why little children bundled
In scarves and snowsuits
Hugging teddy bears
And toting floppy eared
Elephants must trundle
Through snow and slush
Headed helter-skelter
To the bomb shelter
Their mothers in lock
Step with sirens

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Timothy L. Rodriguez has published in English and Spanish. His latest novel is Never is Now. His fiction and poems have appeared in Main Street Rag, Heyday Magazine, Stoneboat Literary Journal (2017 Pushcart nomination), The Raven’s Perch, the Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, and New Theory.

Mia Broecke is fifteen years old. Half-Belgian, half-English, she lives in Fourqueux, France. She paints in her free time and her art has previously appeared in the North American Review and Reed Magazine.


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