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Shoes

James Mulhern

Too old to put her shoes on,
she watched me place her feet
into her favorite pair of Doctor Scholl’s.

“My toes are crooked. They must look funny to you.”
I smiled, trying to ease her embarrassment.

“My mother cleaned houses for the rich,” she said.
“We had to wear the shoes she brought home.
They were often small.
That’s why they look that way.
The toes, I mean.” She laughed.

“I know.” I pulled the second shoe over her heel.
She looked out the window and sighed.

Did she see her mother walking down the street,
a bag of used shoes in her arms, shoulders curled in the wind?

My great-grandmother, moving slowly,
her own shoes worn and broken,
like the skin on her red, cracked hands.
She would be teary but faintly smiling,
relieved she had something more to give.

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