September 8, 2019

Blue Silk Slippers by Anna Citrino

A pair of blue silk slippers rests like luminescent
fireflies on the shelf outside an Asian import store.

On the sole’s tread sit two birds in a tree scattered
with blossom—moon and stars floating above.

I imagine slipping them on, my steps trailing
secret spring flowers across the floor, air folding

quietly back into place after birdsong has slipped through.
For a morning, a year or decades we walk across a floor—

the birds and blossoms of our lives’ grief and delights
imperceptibly pressing their imprints into experience’s carpet.

We hold each other’s lives, slipping between worlds
like birdsong and light ebbing through leaves.

Walking done, in the last hours when all is bone,
our skin is so thin we touch the soul’s soft body.

Everything interwoven with the invisible, we realize
what weighs most can’t be seen

but lingers in the air like incense.
I carry the slippers home.

Light as wafers, I slide them on
and walk across the floor. 







Anna Citrino grew up in California and taught abroad in international schools in the countries of Turkey, Kuwait, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, India, and the UK for twenty-six years. Her current home is the hills of Soquel, California. A graduate of the Bread Loaf School of English in Vermont, Ms. Citrino's work has appeared in various literary journals including, CanaryPaterson Literary Review, and The Evening Street Review,  among other publications. She is the author of two chapbooks, Saudade and To Find a River.  Her book, A Space Between, is forthcoming in December, 2019. Read more of Anna's writing at annacitrino.com

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