TURNOVER

Grace is belly down, afloat, a mere
Two months old, her legs and arms atwitch
With energy. Suffused with her bewitching
Gracefulness, the twists and turns appear

Balletic elegance. She arches her back,
Hides one arm, and flails about with the other,
Wriggles and wiggles, sticks out her tongue at mother,
And finally with monomaniac

Intensity she flips. She does turn over,
Achieves what most of us take four months to learn.
Ah so! That makes her T. O. Q. (that’s “Turn-
Over-Quotient) Two hundred! And we discover

Another kinaesthetic genius. Benoit,
Seles? Look out, you’ll soon be unemployed.

(118 July 25, 1993)

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Comments

Seles must refer to Monica Seles, a world class tennis player. Benoit may refer to Joan Benoit an Olympic gold medalist.

[John Alvord, 1/3/2026]