Physical History
I find myself in a group of women
that I have little to say to
but they make the same movements I do
and I, I make the movements they make
it is the revelation that started on a high-pile rug
I was five, dancing to the Four Seasons
my parents understood I was trying to tell them something
but it fell short of a story
the history of my dancing
is also a history of sisters
of audiences nodding off
and how that didn’t matter to us
there was no question of a show
we weren’t there to please
just as bees fly in patterns for their queen
to pass on the location of pollen-rich flowers
so our dancing is about a hidden spot
whose existence our bodies know about
Anne Broeksma is a well-known Dutch writer and nature journalist. The poems translated here are from her second collection, Vesper (Atlas Contact, Amsterdam 2021), which was nominated for the Herman de Coninck prize and the J.C. Bloem prize. She also writes essays and short stories and in 2024 her acclaimed literary nonfiction book about her search for pangolins, Een verhaal met schubben (‘A Scaly Story’), was published by Atlas Contact.
Judith Wilkinson is an award-winning poet and translator. Recent translated publications include Alara Adilow’s Myths and Traffic Lights (Shearsman Books 2026) and Miriam Van hee’s Sediment of Light, Selected Poems (Shoestring Press 2025). She is currently working on a selection of Anne Broeksma’s poetry.