Leathered Memories

“My feet don’t smell,”
she says to no one,
gliding in her stockings
across the polished floor,
“It’s just my shoes.”

She looks at them,
lined up on the window sill,
drying in the sunlight.
A secret smile of memories of,
oh, it must be
at least twenty five years,
brightens her face.

If only they could talk,
what tales they’d tell;
she doesn’t have much else;
a few faded photos
and old newspaper cuttings.

“You silly duffer,” she admonishes,
“shoes can’t talk.”
But they have grown,
like old friends,
more comfortable over the years.

But comfort can lead
to complacency.
“Just like we’ve done,”
she thinks as she turns
looking through the door
to the back of the chair where he sits,
squarely in front of the TV.

He barely talks these days
and he used to talk all the time.
She smiles sadly,
wishing that he was still
young and beautiful,
full of dreams and passion
and daring-do,
like he was when she really,
truly loved him.

She looks back at her shoes.
“These are my memories,”
she thinks, wiping away
a few spontaneous tears,
“My link with the past;
my beautiful shiny shoes.”

She looks sad, but she isn’t bitter.
As her dear departed mother used to say,
it’s good to air the soul.