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Appropriate shoes
Charlene is a prolific writer, having had not only her poetry previously published, but theater reviews and columns as well (many here in Turbula). She's contributed to everyone from Investor's Business Daily to the La Jolla Village News. She was also a contributor to "Chicken Soup for the Volunteer's Soul."
By Charlene Baldridge
No more fuck-me shoes.
It was the instep that did it –
called all those potential lovers to my side,
sidling, sniffing, even begging
"Where have you been?"
"Could I?"
"Would you?"
It was a boon to my wounded sense of self.
No wonder some of us get lost
in this kind of thing
and become a totally sexual being.
It's heady, powerful stuff and false.
It's the comfortable shoes that matter;
the ones that go the distance, like SAS for instance,
especially now that we're walking around
in a 70-year-old body.
What new tricks would you have me do, God?
The longing is still here:
someone tall to put his arm around my shoulder
and say, "Look at her. Isn't she beautiful?
I'm going to marry her someday,
but even now she's mine. Look at her face.
Can't you tell?"
Is that really why I gave up the fuck-me shoes
with their sexy straps and promise?
It was not easy,
looking for Prince Charming at 58,
but I didn't know it then.
There is much we don't know,
things we see only when we pause
and look back.
What could I have been thinking?
If the tall man can't be mine,
I can be here alone:
Look at me
I am beautiful
I am alive
I can
I will
I am everything I need
I am
Published September 2005
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