Rose & Thorn Journal - Fall 2011
Vanessa Blakeslee’s work has been recognized by grants and fellowships from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Yaddo, the Ragdale Foundation and the United Arts of Central Florida, and has appeared or is forthcoming in Harpur Palate, The Bellingham Review, Green Mountains Review and The Southern Review, among other journals. She was a finalist for the 2011 Philip Roth Residency at Bucknell University and the Sozopol Fiction Seminars. Visit her at vanessablakeslee.
Vanessa Blakeslee
On Shoes
The dust-pink stilettos I bought in Prague.
The Delman Mary Jane heels, my prize hogs.
The wooden clogs stained black from sweat
are mules that give me blisters yet.
The mules I acquired while loving the
Prominent Ass, and over the Delman’s
I hemmed and hawed and signed off four dear Bens.
“If you want them, get them,” my wheelchair friend
gasped through tubes (five days later, he was dead).
The dust-rose heels, lovely on my feet as bouquets,
for three hundred sixty-three days prop stiff
in the dark heart of the closet, pale shells.
On Shoes
The dust-pink stilettos I bought in Prague.
The Delman Mary Jane heels, my prize hogs.
The wooden clogs stained black from sweat
are mules that give me blisters yet.
The mules I acquired while loving the
Prominent Ass, and over the Delman’s
I hemmed and hawed and signed off four dear Bens.
“If you want them, get them,” my wheelchair friend
gasped through tubes (five days later, he was dead).
The dust-rose heels, lovely on my feet as bouquets,
for three hundred sixty-three days prop stiff
in the dark heart of the closet, pale shells.
