My daughter wrestles on her first pair of combat boots for seventh grade
I tell her how my mother hated mine
Aren’t those heavy? She would ask Don’t they weigh you down?
I didn’t get it.
I wrote in my diary how my boots gave me a firm foundation feeling
of strength to walk around on
like confidence
Her hands busy with the black buckles, laces, and hooks, my daughters says
there’s a poem there
I wonder if she’s teasing
We always joke that I see poems everywhere
She pauses, pushes up the sleeves of her oversized flannel
looks at me, her sincere eyes the same bright brown as mine
She guides a stray strand of the thick red hair she got from me, behind her ear
holds my gaze
nods at my unspoken wondering
There’s a poem here
She gets it.
Beth Mulcahy (she/her), a Gen X-er from Michigan, lives in Ohio with her husband, two kids and loyal Havanese dog sidekick. Beth works for a company that provides technology to people without natural speech. She writes poetry, fiction, memoir, and dreams about visiting Scotland. Her work has appeared in various journals. Check out her latest publications at https://linktr.ee/mulcahea.