Shoe Closet

Lacing up shoes, do you ever
Encounter one of those snug knots
Turned to impenetrable stone
That was some snagged loop too tightened?

It’s a pedestrian nuisance,
A petty annoyance. It’s life.
In the closet where she kept shoes
On the floor and in hanging racks

Where she also hid her whiskey
Like glass shoes in cotton slippers,
She had a set of cremations
Of pets and abortion remains

In small boxes along one shelf.
In the ashes of pregnancies,
She said once, life closes its loop
So tightly it knots like a stone.