This poem was written for the latest mini-challenge from Read Write Poem — write seven poems about the body in the context of October. I chose “feet” for the theme of my third poem. Enjoy.
-Nicole
P.S. If you want to read everything else I wrote for the mini-challenge, click here.
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My feet are long, fallow roads of wandering, the color of Earth
on a desert day. Thin piano wires of bone
impress their songs under my drum head skin, and hills of knuckle
rise up to stretch it across their angled and arced backs. You could take
my feet for a ride, rival the curves and turns
of a rollercoaster. These long fellows are gifts
from my father.
I’ve always tried to find shoes worthy
of their impossible lengths, grand vessels of
queenly leather of metallic shine and night sky sparkle to
encompass my royal kinks, slopes, and cracking joints. I want
open sky to house the little toes on the end of each foot
that almost curl in fetal silence into themselves, afraid
to release their faces upwards
like their other brothers and sisters. But few and far between
is the workmanship that can cradle my feet in its arms
and wear beauty on its face at the same time. Instead, Noah constructs
a million ugly arks in fake black leather just to hold them, to
interlope between my skin and the ground. I think going barefoot
is underrated — but that’s impossible
in the half-chilled depths of Ohio’s October.
If I ever find worthy vehicles of my feet that can wear
feathers, the precious gemstone children of Earth, or even
fake ruby mirrored elegance as their clothes, then I would gladly
step in and walk. But I wonder
if the vainglory of such peacockery would warrant
the heavens to drop a house
upon my head.
Written 10/9/09
© 2009 Nicole Nicholson. All Rights Reserved.
