Crab Orchard Review Vol. 12, No. 2, our
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Crab Orchard Review Vol. 12, No. 2, our

Crab Orchard Review Vol. 12, No. 2, our Crab Orchard Review Vol. 12, No. 2, our

craborchardreview.siu.edu
from craborchardreview.siu.edu More from this publisher
22.03.2013 Views

Ruby Slippers in memory of Richard Hunt I’m not looking for ruby slippers when I dart into The Stolen Heart—the only decent gift and home decor shop in our small midwest town—searching for a valentine to send a friend in England. But there they are, perched on the padded edge of a vintage jewel box, their rhinestone bows sparkling with stars the size of sequins. They are shiny and red as apples on the outside, red as I imagine rubies must really be, painted with the kind of enamel that shimmers underneath, as if glitter were frozen then polished to a sheen. And they’re gold inside, as if made for fairies’ feet, not some girl from Kansas. Or a woman like me, stuck somewhere in the middle of my life and worn down this gray January day by the effort of holding melancholy at bay. But there they are, real as my own hand, picking them up and turning them over. No price, so I walk to the front of the shop to ask, not meaning to tell the owner the story of you, my dead writer friend— how I was Dorothy and you were Oz, my words and secrets safer with you than God, the work of finding a way back home our perennial subject— my public reserve broken by these small shoes that seem to have tumbled from the sky to my hand, which the shopkeeper folds my fingers around, explaining that the shoes were once really a pin, whose tiny clasp has broken. And I think, she says, smiling, you should have them for free, 192 ◆ Crab Orchard Review Alison Townsend

Alison Townsend getting out a small velvet bag to pack the shoes more safely. We’d just mark them down for our “broken box.” I believe they’re meant for you. If you ever get that clasp fixed, come back and show us. Which is how I’ve come away with one valentine and a pair of red shoes I look at in the car, washing them with my tears, thinking about the kind of things one does not say in poems: how I believed in angels as a child, how I will never have another friend like you, how the world opens its arms to us when least expected, making a path, lighting a fire at the cottage hearth, creating a home where love may enter, its small heels clicking toward us over the flagstones, its rhinestone bows shining. Crab Orchard Review ◆ 193

Alison Townsend<br />

getting out a small velvet bag to pack<br />

the shoes more safely. We’d just mark them down<br />

for <strong>our</strong> “broken box.” I believe they’re meant<br />

for you. If you ever get that clasp<br />

fixed, come back and show us.<br />

Which is how I’ve come away with one valentine<br />

and a pair of red shoes I look at in the car, washing<br />

them with my tears, thinking about the kind of things<br />

one does not say in poems: how I believed<br />

in angels as a child, how I will never<br />

have another friend like you, how the world<br />

opens its arms to us when least expected,<br />

making a path, lighting a fire at the cottage<br />

hearth, creating a home where love may enter,<br />

its small heels clicking toward us over<br />

the flagstones, its rhinestone bows shining.<br />

<strong>Crab</strong> <strong>Orchard</strong> <strong>Review</strong> ◆ 193

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