Tuesday Poem - Ode to My Docs

One of the exercises I often set students is to write an extraordinary ode to an ordinary object, using hyperbole to make the object extraordinary. This exercise is, of course, based on Pablo Neruda's wonderful odes.  Here's an example I wrote. I don't want to confess to how many pairs of docs I own. Let's just say that most recently they include a pair of high-heeled docs which I can actually walk in. (No affiliation etc.)

Ode to My Docs

As graceful as camels, these shoes,

round-toed, innocent.

See how they gape

affronted by that stiletto’s lewd invitation.

Even the new wild cherry suede

with peekaboo cut-outs

can’t glamour this orthopedic pair.

Like horses (clop clop)

grazing at mild grass in all weathers

or nuns prayerfully wearing a quiet path

round and round the convent garden

these guileless shoes sturdy as Highland calves

decorous as a first date

tramp solidly through their daily chores.

My feet slip into old-fashioned, broad-shouldered words.

These shoes do not admit temporary flirtations.

These virtuous shoes say

in callous, bunion, blister and corn

in sleet, mud and sweat

I do, I do.

Catherine Bateson from: Marriage for Beginners, John Leonard Press