Walking lessons
I did not understand why
my shoes were so different
a little too big wide and clumpy
never the same colour as
the other kids’ shoes
As in so many other things
my shoes were the odd ones out
and didn’t fit in
I could not know then
that my mom bought them clumpy
for my extra wide feet
and a little too big so I could grow
into them during the school year
solid and durable and made to last
I could not know then
that her flat and unfashionable choices
would spare me decades of bunions
fallen arches and shortened tendons
as well as making it easier
to run uphill from the bullies
chasing me after school
I could not know then
that my footwear was giving me
a solid grounding in standing my ground
as well as nurturing an appreciation for
quality over quantity
comfort over capitulation to fashion slavery
Still I remember dreading
the beginning of the school year
slapping and flapping across the floor
in my clunky Buster Brown Mary Janes
while everyone else sported Bass loafers
with shiny new pennies
Today my sleek Danish ECCO Mary Janes
out walk and outlast my limping classmates
while my Dubarrys need neither pennies
nor apologies to my feet standing steady on the deck
as I haul on the brown sails of an old hooker
racing the sunset across Galway Bay
toward the Aran Islands and
a night of Guinness lubricated sean-nós
in a room full of shoes like mine
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