Cardboard Shoes
My great-grandfather
got his first pair of shoes
after his grade school teacher
told his parents that he couldn’t come
to the classroom barefoot anymore.
They were made of cardboard
and when the soles wore out
from the miles of mountain terrain
he kept wearing them
to school and town
as disguises over his feet.
That story is now
a hundred-and-ten years old—
an heirloom reminder
not only of poverty,
but the certain parts of ourselves
we hide in order to fit in.
Ivan Hobson is an MFA graduate from San Francisco State University. Along with teaching English at Diablo Valley College, he is also a multigenerational machinist who works at an industrial shipyard. Ivan's poems have appeared or are forthcoming in publications including the North American Review, The Malahat Review, Hunger Mountain, as well as Ted Kooser and The Poetry Foundation’s American Life in Poetry.