Alan Bern
Why do You Wear the Same Shoes Every Day?
She´s four and hasn´t learned enough
English to spell out her shock
with the glossy letters we´re arranging
on a miniature table in her bedroom
so she opens her closet, shows me rows
and rows of fancy footwear, her hand
brandishing a dagger of vanity as it sweeps
across a space I´ll never possess in any
closet of mine. ¡Yo tengo muchos! she brags.
I have a lot, I say, as if my socks didn´t
cling to my feet after every rainfall.
The sentence, smirking off her lips.
A month´s worth of these classes
couldn´t buy a quarter of a half of one pair
of this girl´s shoes, but I´m a mess
of weeds tumbling about a foreign country,
I must finance my rented room, three
meals a day, new clothes for my shrinking
frame, so I come here with crafts and games
and a sunshiny grin, strive to awaken
her interest in the language that will,
in a couple of decades, feed and clothe
my own single-shoed children. More beach
ball than body, she bobs around the room
on the wave of her possessions, brings me
porcelain dolls, party dresses, a kaleidoscope
of jewelry, storybooks in multiple languages,
and though I´m flailing in a maelstrom
of unreasonable expectations, unpaid
cancellations, undelivered references,
I teach her the English names, correct
her pronunciation, hoard each linguistic
triumph as if lining my pockets with gold.
Every few minutes, her mother struts past
the open doorway, heels striking wood,
her glare a tempest of dissatisfaction, or maybe
she detects the rising stench of old rubber.
Julie Weiss is the author of The Places We Empty, her debut collection. She won Sheila-Na-Gig´s Editor´s Choice Award for her poem “Cumbre Vieja” and was named a finalist for the Saguaro Poetry Prize. Recent work appears in Gyroscope Review, ONE ART, Sky Island Journal, and others. She lives in Spain. Twitter: @colourofpoetry.
Retired children’s librarian Alan Bern is the author of three books of poetry. He has awards for his poems and stories and is an exhibited/published photographer. Alan performs with dancer Lucinda Weaver as PACES: dance & poetry fit to the space and with musicians from Composing Together. Lines & Faces, his press with artist/printer Robert Woods, linesandfaces.com.