This is based on Anna Swir's "White Wedding Slippers." What struck me most about this piece: the subject matter. It's so easy to write about the most expected images of the Nazis, but instead, she focuses on the minute detail of the slippers her mother wore to go get bread. If that's not combating expectation and heavy emotion...
Blue Hospital Socks
One night
my mother drove seven hours in the rain
and came home with this pair of wooly,
fraying, blue hospital grade socks.
She peeled off hers and put these on,
shaking fingers.
Early in the morning
I'd hear her crying, see her touching
her feet, the socks.
They smelled like an old man
and latex.
She wore them a year
but never explained.
They were handed to her by a nurse in Florida,
the only possession of my grandfather.
No comments:
Post a Comment