Questions I asked My Mother

1978, sitting in a shoe store on 3^rd Avenue and 14^th Street
Getting fitted for my first pair of sneakers
I thought they were soooo cool
Blue with yellow lightening stripes on the side

I just knew I’d outrun everyone in these.

Looking up at the display in the window,
I noticed a pair of high heeled sneakers.
I barely remember the design, save to say,
they were clearly and simply, high heeled sneakers.
I turned to my other and asked her,
“why would anyone wear those when you can’t run in then?”, “how odd”, I thought.  
My mother shook her head and said it was “fashion”.
To my 7-year-old mind, it made no sense. 
If you couldn’t run in them, not only could you not play,
you couldn’t defend yourself either.

Walking down third avenue, past an abandoned lot,
that would eventually become NYU dorms,
but was then, basically the neighborhood junkyard many of us played in,
making club houses out of discarded wood pallets, furniture and other materials,
I noticed a few barely or scantily clad girls and women,
meandering the same two clocks, seemingly aimless
some peacocking with purpose, others looking sickly and exhausted.

I turned to my mother and asked, “Mom, aren’t they cold? Are they lost?
Can we help them somehow?”,
to which she sadly shook her head,
her grip on my small wrist tightening slightly,
knowing my nature,
she replied simply, “No, dearest,
it wouldn’t be safe for us to approach them now. 
And yes, they have families...
they just don’t want to see them right now,
for various reasons you’re too young to understand.”

“How sad”, I thought...feeling a traitor to my nature,
walking away, as my mother pulled me onward, farther away from them. 
Bucking and balking at the lesson learned....
we aren’t always meant to look, or notice and
not all are meant to be seen.