16. Oct, 2020

A Pair of Lost Slippers

You are gone from the fastness of the house
Filled with all our familiars.
They have become a displaced diaspora,
Taking refuge where they may.
Your long glassed dressing-table, which took the light from the window
And in whose reflection I grew, sits in the dark now, unclaimed.
The necklaces you treasured,
The wedding rings so touchingly melded into one
When both my grandparents were gone, are in my drawer now.
You don’t want them anymore,
All of those things that were integral to hearth and home
And somehow to the fact of us all.
I know you can’t see them, or fasten them,
Dress up before that glass, look in it to apply liquid makeup
And spray on French perfume,
Or clip on the agate earrings Dad once bought you, favourites.
I know that you are happy where you are,
That there are people to be with.
Yet I find that of the few things retained you will keep,
Clothes in the main,
Your slippers have been misplaced and your feet, in only sandals,
Have been cold for days.
I try to double up on what there is, for wear and spare.
Even then you can’t count on putting your hand on them,
Those simplicities.
Someone else who can see took a brief fancy.
My house is filled with your looked after things,
Nothing broken or discarded in years.
And now it comes down to having slippers on your feet, or not.
There are so many losses, aren’t there, involved in just that?

Ruth Enright