Sapogi

By Elizabeth Shvarts

“Sapogi” is a tender yet heart-wrenching examination of a mother-daughter relationship and a testament to the nuance of the cultural divide, or conversation, between immigrant parents and their children with shoes as the centerpiece.

           take off your sapogi
contralto crackles, staccato stick-letter spittle
flying as i stand sopping slush 
on mama’s doorstep.
it’s 30 degrees below zero and i can’t feel 
three of my toes but mama just
creaks floorboard smile and hands me a dishrag
so i can polish crater cheeks till 
pockmarks turn to porcelain.
have i forgotten mama was hollow too? 
pomegranate pruned raked
 raw so i’d grow plump on a million
 seeds split ruby red she never
buys brand name if she can help it.
look at her now in sandpaper-shower-curtain-coat splendor
milk bottles balanced on pitcher-hips.

            take off your sapogi
laces drip with hot-dog grease so
mama whips out steel to catch bacon fat 
before it bloats the carpet don’t 
i know how many chemicals are in there i
bet the meat’s not even kosher.
mama slips grocery list under her tongue
 before BPA and BHT drip 
into my double helix strands.
 mama says she is a cavern but she doesn’t
need to remind me my boots 
are burial ground for ribcage starved of anchor 
of glass my boots sweep 
shards under the welcome mat.

            take off your sapogi
daughter undress this “american” this
“god bless” this star-spangled second skin are
those lipstick-smeared soles like
molten candy like canker sores like what 
kind of boy wears lipstick             oh
close the door on your way out.

Process

Like its literary predecessors Cinderella and The Wizard of Oz, the idea for “Sapogi” stemmed from a shoe. Sapogi, to be exact, or the Russian word for boots. As I wrestled with the weight of the word and its role in the context of a story that subverted the tropes I’d read about immigrants, which while accurate, didn’t leave a lot of room to explore the parent’s perspective, I revisited my childhood. Growing up, I remember watching my jaw dropping as I watched characters in Disney shows casually prop up their converse on their beds. In front of their parents. Even if our teeth were chattering or we were so tired we could faint, wearing shoes inside the house was a criminal offense. I was intrigued by sapogi’s ability to function, not just as a cultural term but, a vehicle, transporting the supposed “dirt” of American assimilation to and from the threshold, yet a blank slate for the daughter, or child’s hopes and dreams.