Mom looks straight at me
through too-big glasses,
hands a blur like birds in flight.
She’s Chattanooga Choo-Choo-ing
throughout the house to get me 
off her back, prove she can still move,
if she feels like moving.
 
I grew up watching her dance
across the slick linoleum
of our kitchen floor
to In the Mood and other tunes
from her teens and World War II.
 
I try to catch her dance
on video, but my phone is new
and I don’t know much about
the camera. What I am left with
is this awkward still shot,
snapped the moment she orders
put down that cell phone, Junie,
and watch me dance!

From Gravity: New & Selected Poems (Tebot Bach, 2018).
Used here with permission.