A pair of ballerina wannabees in cotton candy tutus
getting ready,
hair as black as intent, as taut as taught muscle,
backs to the mirror because, after all,
an audience is the best reflection of talent.

Applause will confirm they are no mere package of hips and swivel,
but steel-toed dreamers who might have been trained
by Miss Irene herself on a Friday night in 1956.

Back then, not-yet feminist mothers
for whom tulle ruled supreme,
who still believed in white knights and Swan Lake fairy tales,
led their diva ballerinas down the path
to the back of Parker’s Dance Studio
gussied up in pink shingles and castles in the sky,

women like my mother, the blonde prom bombshell,
who needed to believe
that exceptional quads and gracious manners
could overcome buck teeth and a club foot
and shyness as tight as leotards on a chubby girl with no conceit.