Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, SHOES, by CORINNE HUNTINGTON JACKSON


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

SHOES, by                    
First Line: Here I sit with hard eyes looking at my child
Last Line: To suffer torture indian-gauntlet-runner never knew.
Subject(s): Native Americans; Pain; Poverty; Indians Of America; American Indians; Indians Of South America; Suffering; Misery


Here I sit with hard eyes looking at my child
Still in his small flannel gown—
I in a faded gingham plaid—
("Plaid": shades of the Scots who fathered us;
"Plaid": of all colors devil-wrought);
I, who thought the earth would change its orbit
When I wrote
The songs I feel but cannot sing.
In an hour I'm due
At a "Round Robin" small-town function—
You know the kind. There, some of them will look kindly
At my clothes, worn so awkwardly—
More often at the shoes—
(In Heaven I'll trade my harp for shoes);
And some will sneer as they have sneered before.
I shall suffer—but I shall smile inanely.
Yes, I must get up,
Bathe the baby in his old zinc tub
Where he will kick his feet.
He does not know—yet—the pain that eats me
As I take my way in these poor shoes
To suffer torture Indian-gauntlet-runner never knew.





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net