« Michael Estabrook » YOUNG AGAIN I’m here writing in my journal, like Strindberg (I’m in Sweden , reading Strindberg) but unlike Strindberg, I’m not writing about depression and suicide, evil, death, and the certainty of the horrors of the endless abyss. No, I’m writing about my wife, my beautiful, vivacious wife, the love of my life who I haven’t spoken to now for three long days. “You’re in!” I’m gleeful, she’s home, in, and taking my call! She fills me in on little Brooke’s cold and how she’s watering the bejesus out of the lawn, and some supercilious neighborhood gossip. “So what are you wearing?” Juvenal, sophomoric, I know, but I can’t help myself. She doesn’t protest about us being too old for this like she usually does, instead answers right away, “Black pants, a red top, and those sexy sandals you like so much on me.” And that makes me happy, to have a fresh picture of her in my eyes, so happy, and for a moment so young again too. Can tell a lot about a woman from her shoes. I wonder about Cleopatra’s shoes and Helen of Troy’s shoes, and also, did Mary Magdalene wear nice, comfortable sandals? What about Eleanor of Aquitaine , the wife of Henry II and mother of Richard the Lionheart, were her shoes stylish as Anne Boleyn’s must have been or austere and sturdy as Joan of Arc’s? We know that Jackie Kennedy Onassis had fashionable shoes and Imelda Marcos had thousands of them. Yes, you can tell a lot about a woman from her shoes, but I’m not sure what, exactly. Michael Estabrook says: "I’m a Marketing Communications Manager for a tiny division of a gigantic company, and man, going into an office every day can be excruciating. As my avocation, I’ve been writing poetry for so long that Methuselah should be taking notice, but in reality, time is simply doing its thing streaking ahead blithely pulling all of us along for the wild ride whether we like it or not; reminds me, I’ve published 15 chapbooks over the years, the last one just came out about my Dad, “methinks I see my father,” done in cahoots with the talented Glenn Cooper from Australia, and before that was “when Patti would fall asleep,” about my wife. Guess you could say I’m a family man."