His A-6 Boots (Foster Field, Victoria, TX, 1941)

Vincent Hostak

September 1, 2024

At the surplus shop on their own rack

upright in a neat row,

as they were cot side on the barracks floor, 

my father’s A-6 boots

(the ones with straps above the ankles).

They issued orders to add the clasps 

after hundreds of them

descended first from the Texas skies

preceding chuted airmen,

dotting the dunes like wingless shore terns.

The first thing they taught him in flight school

was to turn and shake them,

even before you hit the latrine,

and watch striped-bark scorpions,

tails raised, scuttle off, absent without leave.

The cashier rang me up and asked me if I learned

any stories about the boots.  I said, “I guess, a few.”

Vincent Hostak is a writer and media producer from Texas now living near the Front Range of Colorado south of Denver. His recently published poems are found in the journals Sonder Midwest and the Langdon Review of the Arts in Texas and as a contributor to the TPA. He writes & produces the podcast: Crossings-the Refugee Experience in America.

Red Doctor Martens

John Rutherford

July 21, 2024

I moved two months ago and tossed

my years-old pair of combat boots

Doctor Martens, cherry-red, lost,

thrown away with no excuse.

The soles had flown long ago,

rubbed smooth by my cripple’s limp,

I suppose that just goes to show

you can be both punk and gimp.

I learned to ladder-lace with these,

a clumsy first attempt at cool,

struggling at it, despite two degrees,

just shows what I learned in school.

I’ll miss the familiar feel and weight,

the heavy, plodding shuffle-step

even though I was always late,

I’ve never really had much rep.

Slid them off my aching feet,

said thanks, consigned them to a rubbish heap.

John Rutherford is a poet writing in Beaumont, Texas. Since 2018 he has been an employee in the Department of English at Lamar University.

Boot Tree

Milton Jordan

July 14, 2024

His eight boot tree along the back bedroom wall

holds a pair of Justins, two Luccheses 

and a pair M.L. Leddy made 

twenty years ago, worn carefully some Sundays.

The others stand, sole up and seldom worn

on that tree, their shine buffed, removed

now and then for display, but safety

at this stage requires more stable footing.

Milton Jordan lives with Anne in Georgetown, Texas. He co-edited the first Texas Poetry Assignment anthology, Lone Star Poetry, Kallisto Gaia Press, 2022.