Vol 4 No 1 2010
Lost Shoe
In retrospect, I don’t think you had much
to do with the blood. It seemed to come
after everything was over, after you broke me off
at school’s end on the sober advice
of your father, that work-shirted millionaire
who wouldn’t divorce your mom
or live with her. I was sure either God
or my own iron will would bring you around.
And it happened, at one of the last backyard
parties, ninety degrees at midnight, the keg
tapped out, a bunch of us flinging our skins
around a trampoline and my shoe flying off,
you bringing it to me. In return I said
I’d sleep with you after all.
Then it was simple to drive to the farm,
to be back in your 70’s Chevy, square-ish,
like your Canadian Ranger jaw, back
in the Hendrix/Zeppelin sound machine
where we couldn’t talk. I gave you a lot
of credit, silently, for liking A Raisin In the Sun.
At the dairy creek we watched for moccasins
sunning on limestone. We snagged our shirts
on May-scorched cedar, picked around it
under the oaks, the same fine dirt over your high-
tops, over my gray sneakers. Our blanket felt
ridiculously thin when we found the place.
That afternoon it seemed like a raw deal.
I was sorry for my will and for you,
taken in by the bargain. I had some paper
napkins that saved me later from having
to use leaves like we’d sometimes do
in the country. You were a few feet away,
finding snakes in the water. I was
in the cedar burying my blood.
Kathleen Winter