WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 11MY FATHER’S SHOES

My Father’s shoes sit silent on the closet floor
Waiting
Side by Side
Soul still in them
Toes turned a little outward
The way he often stood.

He never liked new shoes
Putting generation after generation
Of Soles
On the same comfortable uppers
Until one day
There was nothing left to build on.

And he never lay on a bed
Wearing shoes of any kind
Saying, if asked why,
He didn’t like the way it felt;
Shoes belong down,
Always on the floor or on the ground.

And when he took them off
He placed them side by side,
Left shoe on the left,
The right one on the right,
Neatly on the closet floor
To wait until he took them up again.

Did someone think to say, I wonder,
To the undertaker dressing him
That he wouldn’t want the shoes?
It’s bad enough to think he lies there
Fully dressed in coat and tie.

--January 11, 1992