tossing the socks into the bushes,
heaving one foot into the galosh and hopping forward putting on the other,
breaking into a run,
the galoshes are heavy, filled with water or made of lead,
she can’t find the trail back to the elementary school
or there is no trail,
or there never was a trail,
She shakes more of the bag down so it sits around the ankles of the galoshes like underwear. Cups her palms under the soles and lifts them from the bag, surprised how something that held so much weight in her memories could be so light. She sets them down, making sure each galosh touches the floor at the same moment. Shifts them so the fronts are aligned. Then she steps her left foot inside.
leaves fall in between the trees, twisting, falling faster as they contort,
they look like pages of broad paper,
they pile like snowfall,
running over them,
crunching through them is the only sound in the forest,
Her foot gets part way down the mouth of the galosh until her heel catches on the inside of the calf. She shoves a little harder. Maybe if her feet weren’t so fucking fat, she could fit. Other girls could fit into their old things, but not her.
one leaf wraps around her face, and she pulls it off
it’s a newspaper,
headlined Little Girl LOST, in scary boldface
stopping and looking down at the forest floor,
they’re all newspapers,
Little Girl Cry All The Way Home another says,
she can’t go any further, they’ve piled too high,
She shakes her head. That’s not why she doesn’t fit. Ma had scared her into giving the galoshes up when she started to outgrow them. “If you get stuck in there,” she’d threatened, “we’re going to have to cut into them to get you out.” That had been one hell of a deterrent.
running back to the pond, faster now,
jumping into the center, again making no splash,
hearing voices again, no set direction,
from behind her,
above her,
next to her,
from way up on the hill,
“little pig, little pig,” they chide
The heat from her laboring foot begins to turn the inside of the galosh into a latex oven. She curses. But when she goes to extract it, it won’t budge. Her heel is dug into the side. She steps on the galosh with her bare right foot, really presses, and tries to wrench free. She reaches down the mouth of the galosh and tries to break the seal with her hand. She must be failing because she’s putting too much weight on it. It’s gravity’s fault. She flops down onto her back and sticks her foot up in the air, pulling at the galosh with one hand on the treads and the other on the shin. She turns from side to side, trying to wriggle free.
thrashing with her arms out, trying to catch the voices,
her legs are fixed in the black water,
the galoshes pull her down into the muddy bottom,
crying, the water bubbles when the tears hit the water,
pustules of black water swelling and subsiding,
like the pond is breathing,
Her breath quickens when she thinks of her foot being trapped forever in this goddamn thing. She imagines her pediatrician, the one who had the arcade game in his waiting room, talking to her parents. “If she was younger, ordinarily, we could cut her out. But because she’s older, and her foot is so fucking fat, it’d be hard to know where to cut. I’m afraid she’s going to have to lose the whole foot.”