Slippers

I find you in a distressed gentlefolk’s
bungalow clad in a tartan dressing gown

wearing the soft, sad slippers of old age.
A shadow of the irascible man who only wore

shoes, as he trailed honest dirt and debris in
through back and front door, into the lounge.

My mother lives dangerously in her dotage:
she wears crimson high-heeled hostess mules,

replete with a tacky feather trim. We listen out for them:
clickety-clack, clickety-clack. It signals Scarlet O’ Hara

has made it down the stairs again: a perilous journey
from her bedroom to the relative safety of her hall.

They do not flatter her early morning attire:
a long sleeved, full length high-necked nightdress,

but the colour matches her hostess robe.
And her flaming aspirations are still red hot.

© Sophia Roberts
All rights reserved