Andrea Wyatt

we walk along the winding path between our house and school
my sixteen year old and me,
on the way to a calamitous school conference,
(they might expel her)
so I try to think of something to keep her from bolting;

she’s wearing tattered brown clogs,
a shirt with sleeves that cover her clenched fists
and striped blue and white shorts
I had a favorite pair of pants, I say,
my sixties era brown & white striped bellbottoms;

as I tell her about the pants, and a hat I wouldn’t go anywhere without,
she relaxes, and tells me about last summer,
how she went barefoot everywhere
how cruising with her friends late at night
they stop for something to eat and everyone shouts:

“Who’s got shoes?”