If you wear scarlet shoes
You’ll marry a gaijin
her father declared
She’d read the grim fairy tale –
It was only make-believe.
Yet here she stands aproned
At the sink of her suburban kitchen
Legs intact, but her English marriage wearing thinner
Than the soles of those akai kutsu
Down the landline, the call short to save the yen
Finger twisting the coil
Didn’t I warn you, her father cried
About the shoes
Tamiko Dooley read Latin and French at New College, Oxford. She was the winner of the BBC Radio 3 carol competition 2021.