A white tear bled from the foil seam,
a cold, lactic rot sliding down her woven leather heel,
drawing a pale, sour map across her instep.
I watched the porcelain skin of her shoe drink the milk,
and in that quiet curdling, my entire small frame snapped.
A choir of jagged iron shrieked beneath my skull,
tearing through the bone and behind my eyes:
a ruined child deserves no sun.
I did not wait for any reflex.
I dragged myself by the throat,
spat curses into my own ears,
and ran.
I bolted past the garden gate,
past the tall, unbothered grass,
my bare feet slapping the dirt in a rhythm of
self - contempt and fault.
In the damp dark behind the compost heap,
I pressed my face into the stinging nettles,
scraping my knees against the jagged limestone,
offering my own raw, bleeding shins to the air
to pay the debt for what I had done
praying the earth would swallow the wretched thing I was.
Yellow rubber, swallowed by the wardrobe’s floor,
cracked wide across the instep where the plastic split.
They smell of wet rubber, mildew,
fear;
a pair of small boots, size twelve, seven years old,
caked in dried river-silt and salt.
A stranger may look in and call this precious,
a quiet snapshot of a girl who loved the rain
before her legs lengthened
and learned the art of running away.
How sweet to think I open up this closet to
reminisce an untouched girl leaping in the rain.
I never grew out of my yellow boots.
Perhaps I was torn out of them.
The monster does not have a face,
all rot and cold,
a mouth of shadows opening beneath the porch,
his heavy fingers smelling of damp earth and rust.
He never touched the boots; only the girl inside,
snapping her out of them like a bone from a joint,
leaving two empty hulls dropped flat upon the tile.
Each morning I reach into the dark for my coat,
and realize the closet is not where I hide the memory -
but where the monster wears my yellow rain boots,
waiting for me to slip my feet back in.
Hanging off her foot
defying gravity
tethered
it seems
by the erotic
outer arch of her instep
a simple
yet provocatively feminine
gold-coloured sandal
dangles and swings
as her lower leg
arcs gently
back and forth
conveying
with hypnotic allure
the myriad
mysteries and wonders
that is woman
stirring within me
a host of wondrous feelings
letting loose
the flitting butterflies
of longing and desire.
Life’s Avenue
Ensconced in warmth and comfort, butterfly wings with soft bird song fills all around.
Trials and tribulations float away cares and worries turn to happy songs, the joy of laughter from ones loved lift’s my spirit and carries me on.
Under the boughs of leaves from trees many shades of green like an umbrella, I walk arms entwined with love not hate instep on a floor of sweet flowers to the beat taking me to this place in my dreams.
Happiness long forgotten now comes back unbidden, like the waves beating on the shore my soul is awash in this joy pure and unfretted.
Taken by the hand on clouds run free, this euphoria has come over me since I was set free.
Chains and shackles broken the bonds and smell of despair are finally clear, the harps do play and angels cheer.
Once again too walk happy down this path, life’s avenue.
Syringes in fence palings
condoms on park benches
street sweeper drinks whiskey
at four in the morning
opera house silhouettes
the bridge of dawn
first ferry tugs out
rust and ropes
like stale sex
herald the rising sun
Circular Quay swims
with grey suits
and mid length skirts
dark stocking like
instep, to the beat
of yesterday.
you are the rigid lines
of a spine unseen
you are my bonsai woman
you are my broken queen
the instep of a dancer
inclined impossibly
you are Venus famished
with flies beneath her feet
you are the victor, her valor,
the sword deep in her chest
you are my iron maiden
and I shall have no rest
not until you are
mine plus mine are we
do I take you to be
lawfully wed to me
In 1978, Doug Prichard of Lenoir
went to the doctor,
his foot was sore.
The doctor was a tremendous help.
He found a tooth
growing in Doug’s instep.
This was in NC
© Apr 07 2010
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