Friday, April 4, 2008

Quote: Victor Frankel Poem: Post-Toddler Lesson

What is to give light must endure burning. Victor Frankel



Post-Toddler Lesson

The brown shoelace rests
Untied on the brown dining room chair
The lace looks like the ones that
Hold my baby shoes together today.

This is where I knelt
Maybe five but already
Sacramental- confessing to God:
“Help me make a bow and I’ll be good.”

The curse of the left handed is that
The teachers are right handed.
What they showed was frustration
Of labor knotted by a sibling bribe
If I got it right I could go or be left
Behind on a trip that now has no memory.

So many years later
Mom relinquished my baby shoes
Only after being placed in a brown bag
And only after a shoemaker had shined them.

What I received
Was un-bronzed
Shine of dull brown
Worn in heal and toe,
And goddammitt
Still untied!

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