CM Clark

Waiting
for the other shoe to fall
the night reclines, the call that doesn’t come
gums the wires, the works.
Still she lives to breathe, pinwheel eyes to spin
to last to see another day.
Untucking sheetsail bedlinen, disavowed feet forgetting
the mud that clots the clogs, the dressy pumps,
the showy patents, the crosstrainers, prescribed,
paired, primped
for hypothetical strolls around the duck pond.
It is late August; even the sky sweats.

Waiting
for both shoes to land
just inside the front door threshold.
Until then stuck in sleep with one eye open, sleep
sticking in eye corners, gluing cells to soul, locking
slumberers in shots three-quarters over
the left shoulder, framing unlikely rendezvous
with fictional co-stars, living and dead.
All casts accounted for at last
as the tape rolls and the dreams unwind their surly dance,
unscripted games. Real life ringelevio at great risk
before your midnight snack and the sigh of your pillow.
And for me, it was all dusk and dinner: until,
home free all.

Waiting
for the other shoe to return
from the hereafter, from the dead zone
of storms past. From mired storage
a Cinderella pink slipper, a souvenir
for untried toes, left behind by the years’ antic press
and the relentless blindwash, today
unpacked from flood debris dripping
sediment, the brackish breach of land by sea.
Insinuating through the pine roof timbers strapped down
and sidling the walls that hold the wind
the wet seeps, coloring
the mementos and the memories
in the hue of water.
One shoe uneasy, seeking its misplaced mate, mismatched
with other token totems I rescue:
a once-worn outgrown dress, some sundry game
with pieces missing,
lock of hair, lost tooth,
comely carbon relics to embroider the altar, receding
like some renegade hairline – the retreating
sighing surge spent.

Waiting

to hang up my intentions, my spurs,

and tiptoe unseen onto sacred ground, succumbing

to the bells of endless Sunday

and the sheer grass of daytime --

soft gravel’s grace. I engage my middle age

in middle earth with both feet bare

ascending the hillside, human heels

in the promised land, while you fly

longlost kites that scan and map

beyond the unreadable harbor.

We are just a handful of barefoot contessas:

equally acquitted – equally forbearing of all calloused jeopardy,

All ungarnished sky.