Shoe Stall
Friday morning at the market shoe stall.
They were not new, but very nearly –
perhaps models had worn them once, in a much
more glamorous place. Men tumbled them
roughly from a sack onto the wooden
slatted stall, clattering, loose and lonely,
unpaired. Then it was a free-for-all.
Early-birds lined the front row; easy
from there to reach across and pick a lone shoe,
then race to locate its pair. There could be
arguments if someone else had claimed
the other shoe; once a proper scuffle
had scattered us around a semi-circle.
Mostly, it was latecomers who had to fight
for space.
To try on made you vulnerable, unbalanced,
in this turbulent crowd, your own taken-off
shoe could not be put down in case it was
mistaken for the goods.
It was neither kind nor pretty; just like
the shoes, still stiff and brutal in their newness,
and there was the quite unpleasant smell of leather,
cheap plastic, and poverty, the relative kind.
Later, on the bus home with a plastic bag
of loose shoes, more than you needed, there was
a fleeting sense of victory.
Yet I cannot remember any of those shoes.
In Like Flynn
He’s a nice boy, Flynn, the grown-ups approve of him,
he’s swift and decisive, timely, reliable,
he won’t be late for your date. He’ll always smell
fresh from that timely shower, he’ll never hesitate
over that vital first impression,
or falter making the proposal,
or fluff the marriage vows, his buttonhole
fresh and blooming, morning suit so crisp
and creaseless; all these things are most alluring.
Such a promising partner. He’s not going
to miss an opportunity however fast
it races by, he knows his own (near reckless) mind,
and he’s happy to suggest you share
his views, see through his eyes; don’t stop to consider
over-long, and never hesitate
trying too hard to be wise.
You start to wonder if he’s happy
in this state of skating by, though, his own thoughts
slithering and twitching like an over
-stimulated snake? He’s always keenly
taking things on, so they pile up, might fall,
they wobble like the balance of his mind;
thoughts crowd in and each one shouts so loud.
Then one day everything screeches to
a pivoted halt, becomes a crash,
ice scraped up in an instant with a shivering scratch,
a total smash-up of hasty decisions,
later branded rash. Poor Flynn, his epitaph
is bound to be that he just went too fast.
Quick to judge, forthright, quite brash, and only
at the end, still, at last.
Ali Rowland is a poet and author from Northumberland. Her poetry is sometimes about her own mental health disability, and just as often about the world in general. She is assisted in her endeavours by a wonderful husband and a beautiful Border Terrier. Ali won the Hexham Poetry Competition in 2023 and was Runner Up in the Positive Images Poetry Competition. She has been published in Tabula Rasa: Poems by Women (Linen Press): Ten Poems of Kindness Vol. 2 (Candlestick Press), as well as a number of poetry magazines.
Sparks of Calliope 