What Our Feet Tell Us

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She was given so many chances, but in the end Hortense failed macroeconomics.

In a way she was glad.

In high school, she had loved literature and science. She had played clarinet in band, her shoulders swaying, right foot tapping, feeling joy and release as the lilting notes filled the auditorium. In art class, collage had been her specialty. Juxtaposing found objects, pebbles, shells, with fragments of photos, ribbon, she would lose herself in the process of telling a story that she alone, perhaps, would understand, though often her teacher or a classmate would say: That reminds me so much of a summer I spent in Maine, or, Why does that make me think of the day my grandmother died?

Mathematics had never been her strong suit, but there was something about economics that intrigued her. Her father, when he was alive, often quoted as he read the newspaper, filling her ears with the ups and downs of the Dow, acronyms like GDP and IPO, how the yen was doing against the dollar. It was a world she glimpsed, but into which she never set foot.

It was a road she felt compelled to take.

So when it was time to declare her major, she abandoned the insouciance of freshman year and elected the challenge of economics.

Over the next two years the mysteries of the Dow were explained. She could toss off “Keynesian” and “Greenspan said” with aplomb. Now it was she quoting stock market vicissitudes, as she perused the Financial Times, marveling at the growing power of the euro.

Then she took macroeconomics. The early weeks went well. Geopolitics had always fascinated her. But as the semester rolled on, the arcane theory stayed just beyond her reach. As the professor flashed slide upon slide onto the blank white screen that nearly filled the wall at the head of the lecture hall, her toes would tap with impatience. She wanted to be somewhere else.

Ultimately she had to accept the reality: macroeconomics forever would be a world she could glimpse, but into which she could never set foot.

Hazards of Safety

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she was afraid her husband would die first
leave her to learn how
to live with the woman in her mirror
not the girl in his eyes
thirteen in bobby sox and crinolines the first time he saw her
later, holding her hand as she swooned over Elvis
telling himself he would always be her real heartthrob, muse
she would never have to worry about anything
would want for nothing while he was alive
which is what happened

What I learned from my mother

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sometimes I think I learned nothing from my mother
but when I take one wave at a time in a frenetic sea
dance with my refrigerator door
calm a friend
fund a lost cause
cheer on my sons
I remember
how together we invented
heroes we might one day meet
astonishing places we would see
ways we would hurtle through fear
as if our lives depended on it

Heirloom Tomatoes

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Heirloom Tomatoes appeared in the Spring 2024 issue of “Vistas & Byways.”

O Those Cheeks

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round plump plums in summer
as I push your stroller round and round

scarlet mounds as you run round and round
grownups sipping aperitifs
taking no notice of you until you fall
gasping for air at their feet giggling

peaches in winter
roundly delectable sweet
and mine to nibble

pale apricots in repose
round blue eyes behind a sweep of lashes
as I read “Horton Hears a Who”

all memory now

as you read “The Underwear Dare” aloud
the snowy angles of your face
remind me of your father, uncle, grandpa
the cherished men in my life who preceded you
you laugh and I hear them

and we go round
and round
and round

O Those Cheeks appeared in the Spring 2024 issue of “Vistas & Byways.”