Forest Dance

The sycamore is dressed for evening.

Her emerald fruits like drop earrings

toss in the breeze, her leaves flash

in all directions like green sequins.

No one is watching. A curtsy

seems only fitting.

I mimic her dancer’s arms

and strathspey past,

meet a honeylocust in my corner

bearded with rough lenticels.

Seedpods rustle like tassels

or bells at his sides. We set and cast.

I think of my new dance class

off Hickory Street,

how each time Jane and I 

pass right shoulders, she looks up

smiling as though meeting me

for the very first time.

How kind, I think, stumbling 

through my steps the whole way

and trying to find myself 

in the right place at the right time.

Our dances are named for bluebells

and willows, and I think why not?

Today, I greet each tree this way,

reciting their names as I go.

Aza Pace’s poems appear or are forthcoming in The Southern Review, Copper Nickel, Tupelo Quarterly, Crazyhorse, New Ohio Review, Passages North, Mudlark, Bayou, and elsewhere. Read more.


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