Sizing

The phone vibrates with a list of instructions:

a blue tie, the shoes with the laces that stay.

She talks like I’m still the one making obstructions,

like I’m four and might somehow get in the way.

I found the old polaroid stuck in a drawer,

the flash hit the lens and erased my whole head.

Just a white blur standing there on the floor

while the rest of them looked at the camera instead.

I remember the sneakers my brother outgrew,

the toes stuffed with Sunday's black-and-white news.

I spent three years walking in someone else's shoe,

trying to fill up the space in the pews.