Ballerinas

(Here’s another poem from Wednesday Night Regular. Expect a big announcement real soon now!)

Ballerinas

All little girls at some point
Want to be ballerinas
To color with joyful dance
This gray grown-up world
But life dissolves dreams
Debts demand payment
With money as easy as
Lifting a skirt
Delicate limbs twist
To please hollow men
Watching their phones
Instead of breasts freed
For their approval
Rejection still burns
Livers overwhelmed
Eyes looking nowhere
The personal cost of business
For grown-up ballerinas

Whatever brought you to my table
I’m glad you’re here tonight
With me

Ballerinas

Ballerinas

Illustration by Tammy Atkinson of Atkinson Creations

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About Bartholomew Barker

Bartholomew Barker is an organizer of Living Poetry, a collection of poets in the Triangle region of North Carolina where he has hosted a monthly feedback workshop for more than decade. His first poetry collection, Wednesday Night Regular, written in and about strip clubs, was published in 2013. His second, Milkshakes and Chilidogs, a chapbook of food inspired poetry was served in 2017. He was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2021. Born and raised in Ohio, studied in Chicago, he worked in Connecticut for nearly twenty years before moving to Hillsborough where he lives and writes poetry.
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