For Katja Poem by Ryan Cole

Russian women, she says,

Learn young how to move their hands

She is a dancer

Grace granted human form

and as she swings and sways and flies upon the stage

Each movement plants a flag

and lays claim to another piece of my heart

She is a Traveller

moving through this world

from a place by the mountains

she thinks of as home

Her long fingers and slender arms

dance in a way I’ve never seen before

Russian women, you see

Learn young how to move their hands