-lost-

my younger brother had smaller feet than my own

but he didn’t know it and frankly neither did I

so when the shoes he ordered arrived at the shoe store 

in the wrong color and style he gave them to me assuming

I could use a new pair of shoes.

like him, I wouldn’t wear those shoes
to a dance at the junkyard,

but I accepted them with the same graciousness

in which he had given them and when he left my house

I tossed the shoes into the bedroom closet never to be worn.

let’s say this happened about 30 years ago.

I don’t remember giving them away
or donating them to the Goodwill because

we all know where that would have gone,—

to the place where my brother sees the shoes

on the feet of a stranger walking into the restaurant

which means those horrible looking shoes followed me

through wherever my movements in life drifted to
for at least 30 years.

It’s nearly four days since my younger brother died

at the age of 70 in Florida and I can’t find the shoes.

I’ve looked for them, going so far as into places where
I know they wouldn't be, called everyone who might
have some recollection of them, some clue to their whereabouts,

a suggestion as to a long vacated residence

which might have slipped my mind and although
I don't require them to remember his life
the fact that the shoes are missing has become
something of a short-term exploratory mission.

they were oxblood leather lace-ups,

narrow-fit with a pointed, tortured toe
sporting the label of an unknown manufacturing company

screened to the bottom soles and inner heels

last seen being transported from one house to another,

one car trunk or another,— the cause

of the bulge in that wrinkled brown paper bag
stored out of sight in a quiet place other than here

and I hated those fucking shoes and so did my brother.