The Innisfree Poetry Journal

www.innisfreepoetry.org

by Andrea O'Brien

Maria Tallchief: Ballet is


woman, Balanchine once said, and I was one—
one wife, one ballerina, one body
sketching the line George imagined. I spun
fire and wings from bone and blood, the key
to locked chambers from tissue and fat, the sun’s
bravura from endless mirrored study.
When man first kindled fire, perfection
was not first thought, but what can I next achieve.

The body is poor tinder, burning
into ash. I am left with a river
of princes, a fairy book story, the curse
of aging. Somewhere, someone is turning
a version of my Firebird, sliver
of knowledge that I sparked God’s flame first.



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