for Annie A.
Two pairs of shoes on a bare closet floor: an interior view.
I am carrying Annie’s painting along a snowy trail.
High-heeled shoes, one pair a silk chartreuse—
I carry Annie’s painting along the whitened path.
The other pair is red. Red slingbacks! Do you wear these?
I asked, before offering to carry Annie’s painting through the snow.
She’d put on her boots. There are no boots in the painting—
Annie’s—I carried through the snow.
There is an implied door, a geometry of light
(I might glimpse a bit of Annie while carrying her painting through snow;
for I’ve turned the picture toward me to protect its painted surface
from thick, wet flakes that settle on the canvas and the path).
I’m inside her closet with her shadowy, bright shoes,
carrying Annie’s painting through the snow. Ann E. Michael (www.annemichael.com) writes poems and essays from her home in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley, where she lives with her husband and two children. Her work has been published in many journals, including Poem, 9th Letter, Natural Bridge, Runes, and others. She is a past recipient of a PCA Fellowship in Poetry. Her first chapbook was published by Spire Press in 2004; her 2006 collections are The Minor Fauna and Small Things Rise & Go.