His moccasin house shoes
of soft leather
and hard soles
hide in the corner
between the sliding glass
door
and La-Z-Boy.
Once the casserole dishes
are scraped clean,
and the phone has ceased
to ring for days,
she pulls the vacuum out
to begin the quiet routine
of erasing the dust
from their final day to days.
She strains her arms
to push open a window.
Carnations, chrysanthemums,
and hyacinths
sigh from the kitchen table,
coffee table, mantle,
and every other surface that
is empty enough to hold
a funeral vase.
She leans down
to plug in the vacuum cord,
her thin nightgown
brushing her knee,
and sees the moccasins
underneath the cat’s
indifferent nose.
The moccasins were
a Christmas gift,
the leather now stained
an earthy brown
from the mud beside the
trashcan
he wheeled out
every Thursday
and Sunday.
The laces are frayed,
still tied
in the same knot
from when he left them
lying there.
She slides her feet out
of her plush pink slippers
into the matted wool insoles
and shuffles down
the driveway
to get the letters that will
still bear his name while
she bears all the rest.
* This poem is a break from form, which given the guidelines I set for myself is a form of cheating, so which means it is still a "form", right? Ha.
This poem came from an exercise in the wonderful book The Poet's Companion by Kim Addonizio and Dorianne Laux. The prompt said, "Describe a pair of shoes in such a way that a reader will think of death. Do not mention death in the poem." I thought of it this week because Brian has been away visiting family in Florida. He'll be back soon, but I started thinking about what it would be like to have lived with someone for decades and then to suddenly have to face life without them.
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