Heeling

Christian Century, Nov 2, 2004 by Sarah Rossiter

Heeling

   It's the coat I notice first, several sizes
   too big, and blue as the sea, an ocean
   to drown in, and clearly not hers. It was,
   I guessed, his, just two months dead, and
   she, his wife for scarcely a year, stays
   afloat, barely, marooned in his clothes, in
   anything that keeps him close, the scent
   and touch of cloth to skin. But it's the shoes
   that pierce my heart--gunboats, we called
   them when I was a child--and they do look
   like boats, his New Balance sneakers that
   carry her, heeling, over sharp breaking waves.