Les reines sont faites de distance

after Danseuse au repos, 1879, Edgar Degas

I wait to see if your body
will wake from its fold

or if you’ll stay
quiet, collapsed. Knee

and ankle, possible
points of injury; cloud

of blue bow pressing
down your back, face

to the ground. I’m here
to say I know this pounding

outside the chest. Light-
headed, we never rest

as they shout again
one more time, again.

Sam New is an MFA Poetry candidate at Old Dominion University. She received honorable mention for the 2023 ODU Poetry Prize sponsored by the Academy of American Poets and the Poetry Society of Virginia. A Best of the Net nominee, her work appears in Portland Review, Barely South Review, Reverie Magazine, Birdcoat Quarterly, Waccamaw Journal, and elsewhere. Her work is forthcoming in South Dakota Review and Glassworks Magazine.

Sam New