The Spit-Shine, Translated

Much of the time
since last November
my left foot has had me
hurting and hobbled:
bunion-bruise, arthritis
and falling-down injury.
My least-painful footwear:
a pair of beat-up boots,
water-spotted, scraped,
mottled, stained and faded.
Ugly, but they only hurt my eyes.
Needing to make the boots
presentable enough
to take my feet out in public,
I shopped around
until I finally found
a polish I hoped was the
right, weird gold-brown,
then asked my resident
ROTC-spit-polish pro
if he could possibly,
please,
try to make my boots look
a little more presentable.
“Well, you’ll have to take
them off for minute,”
he said, laughing.
“And you’ll have to take
your head out of that computer,”
I said as I laughed, too,
hurriedly unzipping the boots
and handing them over.
He promptly disappeared,
gone to the garage
and his polishing gear
to see what magic
he might conjure.
Some long time later,
he swung back in the door,
hiding “something”
behind his back,
grinning.
“So those boots…”
he said,
“They were really dried out.
I had to deep polish them,
twice.
And buff them hard,
twice.
(…dramatic pause…)
But check this out…”
And he produced the boots
from behind his back,
his rabbit from a hat,
I clapped, exclaiming!
There were my old boots—
still slouchy, creased
and broken in
so they didn’t hurt—
but now resuscitated,
Cognac-Creamed,
glowing and gleaming,
moisturized
and softened
by not one, but two
applications of
elbow-grease.
After more than 60 years together
I am easily fluent in all
my husband’s love languages.
A translation of what
just happened here:
Prince Charming just told me
how very, very much
he loves and adores me.
He said it clearly…
by polishing my glass slippers.

Ann Keiffer
April, 2026

Image: Google Search/Photo Editing by Ann