for Sally

for two years

your shoes sit in my closet

as I try to muster the moxie

to put them on

only now like a schoolgirl

in her mother's dress can I

secretly dance around the bedroom

with no one near but

daybreak

a door with

this uncanny habit of

closing suddenly

where I dance in

the shoes

that sat for two

years far

from the earth that surrounds you.

now I know what it's like to

stand in your shoes—

it's like walking on a silk cloud.
© 2004 - Jayne Lyn Stahl