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My Daughter Started Walking by Julie Weiss



My Daughter Started Walking

For Prince, and for Ariana


the day you glided over the divide.

The walls in the hallway where

she tottered between her mothers


throbbed a thousand different beats,

the floor a stage beneath her feet,

air a spectacle of glitter and swirl.


Could she divine the wisp of hands

that guided her as she reached

beyond the bounds of her body


for something to steady her sway?

Each fall spoke to an artistry

that could only have been choreographed


in your deep-rooted tradition

of perfection, as if you had rehearsed

this encounter hours before she woke.


Back & forth she walked, light

streaming purple through the window,

promise of rainfall, of wildflowers bursting


into a melody of colors. She walked,

each step sturdier than the last,

rejoicing in the voice of your songs.





Julie Weiss´s debut chapbook, The Places We Empty, will be published by Kelsay Books in July 2021. In 2020, she was a finalist in Alexandria Quarterly´s first line poetry contest series and a finalist for The Magnolia Review´s Ink Award. In 2019 she was a Best of the Net Nominee. Her recent work appears in Montana Mouthful, Mothers Always Write, Sheila-Na-Gig, and others, and she has poems in many anthologies, as well. Originally from California, she lives in Spain with her wife and two young children. You can find her on Twitter @colourofpoetry or on her website at https://julieweiss2001.wordpress.com/




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