It wasn’t wrong because they were her heels
but because they weren’t mine,
mother said when she found me
tramping around in her bedroom.
I liked the sound more than the look
of them. There is nothing like that
click in an empty hallway—
lives are measured between
those footfalls. I didn’t know
it wasn’t normal, that there were words
for it, or why mother looked
sad and told me to go outside—play.
I was too high up in those shoes,
too close to her eyes
wetter than normal.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 23, Issue 1.
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