This is the story of why my shoes
lie in a row at the bottom of my closet.
In the state of Virginia, on the North American
continent, there was a wasp.
Perhaps it was a yellow jacket, I’m not sure,
and though I care very deeply and desire to be
as refined as possible, this is also a story
of resignation. Was it there I read Wordsworth?
I don’t remember, but one summer vacation
I began to notice little things in nature,
like the wild azalea, it salmon pinkening
to a crustacean rose, each bloom a tiny head
with mouth and horns, and when I looked closely
I saw a spider skitter between blooms,
I saw a long spindle of drool, I saw a single globe
of some kind of moisture, as if earth’s image
were fastened to the end of a stick.
This kind of thinking led to a palace, the defining
carpet unrolled, and I entered the spiritual Versailles
of wannabes on tiny misshapen heels.
How close I came to meeting the king
I’ll never know, I only know I approached him
(on tiny misshapen heels)
before the wasp, whatever, fuck it, inserted himself
and sat down, plump in his gorgeous robes, on the throne
of my ivory feet. I stopped breathing then,
but took it as a sign someone was announcing my name,
that I was leaving one chamber and entering another
but did not know I would fall unfocused and alone,
half-dead on the dirty path.
For a moment—one delirious moment that curiously
marked both my rise and fall—I thought
I heard the nearby brook singing,
but I think now it was strangling some branch.
Later, lying on flowered sheets in the motor home,
my mother ecstatic to have me back, I could hear
the medics up front swiveling in the driver’s seat,
one saying to the other it’s my dream to have me
one of these babies someday. What a nice thing
to say, I thought. Someone brought me a donut.
So Wordsworth, crossing the Alps, lost his guide
in the mist, walked on, and later reconnoitered
with his friends. When are we coming to the summit?
he asked. You’ve already crossed cried the guide,
then he took his pointed stick and stuck it
in the mist. That was a long time ago
and every morning I get up, my refinement in decline.
My shoes are stepping-stones. Much clear water
running fiercely through my closet. Afraid to cross,
slip on moss, that kind of thing. Some of my friends
ask me for details, but I just stand there
in my bare feet, terrified to look down.