dVerse Poetics – Shoes

This is written in response to Kim’s prompt for dVerse Poetics – shoes.

The things left behind
My mother’s shoes
parked under the bed where she left them
before she went into the skilled nursing facility.
I find it hard to put them away.

My father’s shoes
still new in a box but
35 years old. He never got to wear them.
I find it difficult to throw them away.

My baby shoes
bronzed, wrinkled, and tiny.
My parents loved me.
I dust them every day.

The things we leave behind
break our hearts when found.
Shoes – on the ocean floor
left behind by those who died
on the Titanic.
These things will lie entombed until the end of time.

public domain images