Strippers in Slippers
Exploding with sparkles and black fuzzies,
With a nice two-inch platform for my feet,
At age eight these were my prized possession.
I felt like a rock star prancing around
On a bright night on the strip in Vegas,
Out late walking around with my parents.
Ten o’clock is late for an eight year old
Even for one with plenty of late night
Vegas experience under her belt
From previous years visiting Grandma.
I fell asleep at the dinner table,
Then once again in the back of the cab
With my feet on my dad’s lap and my head
On my mom’s, no one noticing my shoes.
Bawling the next morning, I demanded
That my mom call the taxi company
When I realized my favorite pair of shoes
Had been abandoned, were just left there for
Some stripper to find and waltz downtown in.
She’d probably show them to all her friends
They’d be dressed in sequins and lots of lace
The jealous gaggle of strippers would rush
To find other pairs of shoes with sparkles
And black fuzzies with a two-inch platform,
Hoping to match for their next show that night.
Well unfortunately for them, those shoes
Were bought four months before, one state over.
When I explained my theory to my mom
She just tried to hide her smile and said,
“I don’t think strippers wear your size slippers.”
Shoes, secret face of my inner
life:
Two gaping toothless mouths,
Two partly decomposed animal
skins
Smelling of mice nests.
My brother and sister who died at
birth
Continuing their existence in you,
Guiding my life
Toward their incomprehensible innocence.
What use are books to me
When in you it is possible to read
The Gospel of my life on earth
And still beyond, of things to come?
I want to proclaim the religion
I have devised for your perfect
humility
And the strange church I am
building
With you as the altar.
Ascetic and maternal, you endure:
Kin to oxen, to Saints, to condemned
men,
With your mute patience, forming
The only true likeness of myself.
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