September 2021
Bio Note: I miss the grand old department stores and the shopping trips with mother and grandmother to mark the start of the new school year. Lancaster, Pennsylvania had Watt and Shand, which was quite lovely, but did not compare to Wanamakers in Philadelphia. New shoes for a new school year felt pretty special. I have published three chapbooks and am the English language poetry editor for Poetry Hall: A Chinese and English Bilingual Journal.
Gift Shoes from Philadelphia
My grandmother bought me
a pair of green loafers in September
from Wanamaker’s department store
in downtown Philadelphia
when I was nine.
Afterwards we dined on delicate sandwiches
in the Crystal Tea Room,
me periodically bending
sideways to admire my new shoes.
Someday, a left-handed gentleman
may offer you an oyster on the half shell
in the bright afternoon
and you could become Venus.
You could rise from the sea’s white
foam as it sizzles across the smooth
curl of a wave,
as it bounces and dances through the crash
as if trying out some startling new shoes.
You could dance like seafoam
while the multitudes line up for Mars,
his lust for conflict
sometimes festering in innocuous places.
As a child I had no idea
shoes even came in green,
or that love could take the form
of gift shoes from Philadelphia.
I wore them to school day after day,
the smart gold buckles
gleaming in the dim hallways.
Mrs. Seldomridge’s classroom
with its rigid rows of desks, her strict
rules, the bully,
and new math textbook
tried to stifle me
but my sleek green slip-ons
would have none of it.
©2021 Sylvia Cavanaugh
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