my mother was a dancer
A poem by Nicole Farmer

my mother was a dancer

i am a dancer
my daughter is a dancer

we’re genetically wired through our sinewy
muscles so the back beat just won’t let us stop

moving memories of my mother clapping
twisting and turning
snapping her fingers, hips
gyrating in unknown patterns
feet skidding across
the kitchen floor
uncontrollable joy transported
to unknown pleasures
lost in the rhythm
eyes closed, lips parted
not my mom at all

here i am today
skating across the hardwood
of my tiny gallows kitchen
dipping and diving
shimmying and shaking
belting from the bottom
of my throat
jerking and jiving in my private
disco full well knowing

that my offspring
will be turning and twisting
in nine-inch heels, no less
mastering all the moves
down to a science
under the black lights

once there was hippy
chick called a free spirit
next an 80’s girl
called a maniac on the dance floor
now a Gen Z exotic
dancer strutting her stuff

rhythm in our roots!

About the Author:

Nicole Farmer is a teacher and reading tutor living in Asheville, NC. Her poems have been published in over forty magazines including The Closed Eye Open, Peregrine, Poetry South, The Amistad, Quillkeepers Press, drunk monkeys, Sad Girls Club, Suisun Valley Review, Wisconsin Review, Haunted Waters Press, Adelaide Magazine, Big Whoopie Deal, Sheepshead Review, Wild Roof Journal, Bacopa Literary Review, Great Smokies Review, Kakalak Review, 86 Logic, Inlandia Review.  Nicole was awarded First Prize in Prose Poetry from the Bacopa Literary Review in 2020. Published books:  Wet Underbelly Wind (Finish Line Press, 2022), Honest Sonnets: memories from an unorthodox upbringing in verse’(Kelsay Books, 2023). Way back in 1990 she graduated from The Juilliard School of Drama.

website: NicoleFarmerpoetry.com

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