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C. E. J. Simons

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Shoehorn

From home to home, it lurked among the umbrellas
to force one thing into another, for want of a Cinderella.

It was the civil
tongue I couldn’t keep: cut out,
caned, and set in steel.

Not a proud horn, lost
as the boot descended from
the rhinoceros—

but like cattle-prod
named for its victim—to cram
‘sashayed’ into ‘shod’.

Any shoe can fit
if you take off your sock or
whittle down your foot;

but snug inside each pirouette and victory-march
lurk damp family secrets: the ingrown nail, the fallen arch.


Since one thing must go into another, even if it doesn’t fit,
a shoehorn’s a useful heirloom to inherit:

each heel rides its slide
into wingtip or Oxford
or any tanned hide.

Its chromed spoon reflects
every time I tie the knot
why I genuflect:

into the round hole
square pegs must, when style demands,
carry their struggle.

For form’s sake, we kneel
to preserve the dark spaces
between tongue and heel.

Then accepting what we can, and shoeing what we can’t accept
we step over the spot where our fathers fell in step.

Page(s) 58-59

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