Feet have more bones 
than any other part of the body. 
They carry the mass of us, 
souls on soles, 
in our busyness, on our business. 
We pass each other, 
invisible in our worlds, 
looking down at our feet. 
Our shoes. 

There are women, 
Imelda wannabes, 
obsessed with shoes. 
They have shrines dedicated to them, 
their closets stuffed with shoes, 
on racks or in boxes or piled on the floor. 
Shoes come branded, 
we brand ourselves with shoes, 
with status symbols 
in style and color and logos. 

Dorothy had ruby slippers; 
Cinderella’s were made of glass. 
I saw Dorothy’s slippers behind glass 
in a museum of American history. 

And I saw more shoes behind glass 
at another museum of history, 
shoes gray with age and dust and sorrow. 
High heels, plain loafers, workman’s boots, 
children’s soft leather shoes. 
This is all the physical evidence of 
the mass of the souls who shed them – 
branded by hate, 
herded into chambers – 
the evidence their bones walked our world 
is a pile of shoes 
rising from the floor to knee heighth 
in a space slightly larger 
than my parents’ walk-in closet. 
The shoes of Shoah.

Her blog can be found here: http://everlastingsplendor.wordpress.com