. . .so many shoes I couldn't work in. Still see my Little Brother's worn, dirty sneakers parked on the front of the stage at the Rialto in Beardstown, Illinois. Buddies' sneaks, each rattier than the other, and some with toes and filthy white socks poking out, waggling to each side. Miss you, man.
~~~~~~~~~~

          Shoes and There are Shoes

Mirroring  mary-janes, black as beetles, stayed
in the closet unless Company came
or the odd Sunday he or she hauled Brother and me
to First Baptist [her] or First Methodist [him]
Strings on my everyday shoes kept breaking
and coming untied.   Knots kept knotting.
More on the window sill she had scrubbed
her hands raw getting clean.  Little Ladies do n o t
squat to make a pie out of dirt, water from the hose,
and berries that she stole  from Bigmouth’s holly. 
Three.  Three coats of All-White.  Never learn.
I learned to walk in bad school shoes to good
lessons.  Oxfords, ugh.  Do-do the last straw.
Ankles were weak, how come I won races? 
Shoe store fun.  Ooh, my feet are green skeletons.
Lady says my toes are oka– OW.    Daddy boxed
my ears!  Little Pitcher now-?   My feet weighed
by hideous brown boats on lead blocks,  Daddy’s
in “wingtips,” he went his way, and I had to go.
Shoes grew holes and flapping soles that blur
to black ballerina slippers I-me-I bought.  Great
‘til they ran over.   Clerking at a drugstore
after school and weekends and a mother falling
for and off of heels meant laying away cheap shoes
I picked out.   Moccasins in kelly green felt-?!
Only $5.99-?!  Kelly skirt a n d kelly blouse on sale
at Lerner’s?!?!  Yay!  (Can you say Jolly Green Giant?)
My friend Maude,  who was maybe a hundred,
bought me real leather loafers for graduating.
Take care of these, they will take you to college,
Maude said.   Black  will go anywhere.  Penny kind,
like I dreamed.   Wait.  Forgot the saving soul
kept me while ironing Daddy’s shirts. Take care
of your feet, child!   Before she died Mouse’s shoes
were white and black with holes.  Biggest she cut
on account of two big  red bunions.  Also forgot. 
to raise a prayer for the “lizard” spikes I bought
with mashed, JohnnyWalker-drenched bills slipped out
of a partier’s wallet in that dark stinking apartment
at thirteen.   Red to match, I strutted uptown.
Wobbled, lurched.  All knobby elbows and knobbier
knees, stick frame poking from sale pleats in every color
of the rainbow, I stuck my nose in the air to show men
like Daddy they couldn’t have me.  Want me or not. 
Change to something comfortable,  try a new path.
College steep but the loafers lasted.   Climbing on,
shoes start coming easier.  That is, after the kids
were shod.  No regrets for marrying Worn White Bucks.  
Countless repairs later, got dancing shoes, walking shoes,
running shoes.   Flip-flops and beaded sandals
for hot,  faux-furred boots for frigid.   Not likely
to forget soles flapping up and down Second.   Snow
and ice numb.   Hope I walk in other shoes.


(c)  Phyllis Jean Green,  September, 2005

 

 

N:  My talented friend Katherine Tracy, editor of L'Intriigue, is putting together a poetry anthology re Katrina.  Submissions welcome!
Correction:  KT has decided to make the theme more general:  now more along the lines of  humankind against (the worst of) Nature.  "Human condition," might say.  Certainly broadens the possibilities.  Other storms, quakes, tsunamis, name it.  Time to put on our
thinking caps!