Candace Armstrong
I remember her clumping tread,
the rubber-tipped cane
striking the floor before
the halt-slide step.
In a hurry, it was a faster
clump-shush, clump-shush.
As a child, I never understood
why she walked that way.
She’d had polio, her childhood
spent in heavy leg braces,
one leg forever shorter,
lucky she could walk at all.
Her feet were tiny, her shoes
built-up, special-ordered,
bought to match her wardrobe
and walking sticks.
Her gait sounded an early
warning system to teenage ears.
Later it was the white noise
of her invisibility.
Now, with belated empathy,
I swipe cobwebs from her cane,
long consigned to an attic corner─
put to use for my shattered knee,
lucky I can walk at all.
Candace Armstrong writes poetry and fiction in the beautiful woodlands of Shawnee National Forest in Southern Illinois. Her book, Evidence of Grace, was published in April 2021. Her poetry and short stories have been published in DASH Literary Journal, Quill and Parchment, The Corona Silver Linings Anthology, The Lyric, Midwest Review, Illinois State Poetry Society, Highland Park Poetry, Muse, and the Journal of Modern Poetry,and other journals and anthologies. Candace also had an essay published in The Mindful Word. She received Special Recognition in the Helen Schaible Sonnet Contest from Poets & Patrons in 2018 as well as First Honorable Mention in Category 1 of the Poets & Patrons contest in 2020. Candace has taken fiction workshops and classes at the University of Iowa, the College of Charleston, and others online, including WOW! Women on Writing. She participates in local poetry and writing groups. You can learn more about Candace and her writing at candacearmstrongwriter.com.