Ode to Old Shoes

the feet seek freedom busting the broadest toe box

splaying out for balance in an almost gape

at the gravity of it all and the earth’s endlessness

such a repertoire of grounds and surfaces

for the feet to savor without ingesting to rely upon without clinging

a lesson from the dust of the ancestors

who would’ve gone to rest in their best shoes

the straight and narrow ones that pinched all through church

not the ones they worked and walked in

soft as spring rain tough as old chewing gum

settling at the dump into holes just their size