Polishing his Shoes
My father visits me from deep
in the cupboard of my memory.
He sits in the kitchen, Sunday’s papers
spread out on the floor before him.
There’s a waft of turpentine as he pops
the lid off the tin, dips bristles in wax
and I hear the reassuring sweep
of his horsehair brush on leather.
It’s a ritual, ingrained as Sunday Mass,
drilled into him since army days
in the barracks of Kettering,
where he learnt to spit-shine boots
until he glimpsed his face in them.
His outsized feet are his secret agony,
his Oxford shoes, his penance –
nailed, stitched, pinching bunions,
blistering soles and yet he treats them
with the loving attention he gave us.
Some wounds are beyond repair
but he lingers on scuffed edges,
damaged heels, shows me how to hide
the scars of a lifetime’s buffeting
with a little paste and a rag, torn
from his old check shirt to burnish.