Behind many a shoe-fetish there lurks
a foot-phobia, a purple disgust
for the clay where tall flesh meets supine earth,
where cold, unquickened blood, for lack of thrust,
pools and swells the socked and shod interface
between the human and the damp Other.
Our soles now soft, our steps hard, and our pace
a gallop, we need to love to cover
the kicking objects at the farthest pole
of our selves— twin tools that get us ahead
by stepping on, in, or over the whole
community which so kindly keeps us fed.
Thus the shame and shock when grace bends to wash
our filthy feet, exposed and cleansed at once.