NORTHEAST OHIO SPOTLIGHT

At the African American Debutante Ball in Youngstown

Poetry by ​​Dom Fonce

She folds
            underneath him–
                        wrapped up like a family
                                    heirloom—and he holds
                                                her hand as a father does
                        to the back of his newborn.
The jazz musicians pause,
                        inhale something more than air, and exhale
                                                the Viennese Waltz. They all swing.
 
                                    Somewhere, a child twirls a dandelion
                        between his fingers, stops, and blows white feathers
                                                into the sky–
 
now she is a castle of fabric and he
                                    is a guard dog watching
                                                            the door. They step
 
                        in neat handshakes, and the girls move
                                                from boy to boy and back
                                    with each beat.
 
                                                            In the end, the hall simmers
                                                                        to a halt—every girl has finally
            arrived; innocents has left
                                    each eye—the universe is placed
                                                                        down in portions
 
                                                to comb through and procure.
 
                                                            They all choose, “Yes, I want it.”
 
                        And the room turns crimson, explodes with saxophone blasts–​
 
                                                                        quickly, they stuff their
                                                laurels down their gloves
 
                                                                                    and set the room ablaze.
​

Dom Fonce

Dom Fonce is a poet from Youngstown, Ohio. He is the author of Here, We Bury the Hearts (Finishing Line Press, 2019). He is the Editor-in-Chief of Volney Road Review and a poetry editor at Great Lakes Review. He is also an MFA candidate at the NEOMFA. His poetry has been published in Obra/Artifact, Burning House Press, Black Rabbit Quarterly, Italian Americana, 3Elements Review, America’s Best Emerging Poets 2018: Midwest Region, and elsewhere.