Issue 15
Whim
Patricia Wellingham-Jones
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Red Shoes
Who knows
if it was a whim
or a heartfelt need
or what it meant
to keep the red plastic shoes
with fake emeralds,
turquoise and diamonds
tightly strapped
to her eight-year-old feet.
Those shoes walked
on the firm sand of the shore,
slid on damp grass,
lifted in military cadence
to the sound
of some unseen drum.
Without those shoes
tucked under her bed
the child woke in sobs
during the night.
With them near her fingers trailed
over cheap plastic, glass jewels
and she slept.
Wise parents
didn't throw those shoes
into the rubbish, didn't shout.
Didn't demand
she grow up -- she did
grow up, unafraid,
put away her red shoes,
forgot them for boys.
Today while searching
for documents in a trunk
dusty in an attic, her hand brushes
the sharp edges of gems.
From tissue crumpled and torn
she pulls the old red shoes,
plastic cracked, straps frayed,
sets them aside
for her young daughter
to dance on the lawn.
~Patricia Wellingham-Jones
Patricia Wellingham-Jones is widely published in journals, anthologies, and
online. She is the recent winner of the Reuben Rose International Poetry
Prize in Israel. Email.
© 2004 by Patricia Wellingham-Jones. All Rights Reserved.
© Copyright 2004 by Cayuse Press. All Rights Reserved.