The Shoes

When they first came their mouths agape their bodies shining like beetles about to stir every edge poised for the multitude of steps some moment of leaping not yet taken their hides stiff shielding some tenderness within, warming to the creak of movement over penitent steps or dusty wastes, unyielding tasks or stony memorials of waiting through the heat of day's quiet middle, every icy threshold or soggy spring their heels flush with pavement, their soles flung aside only for love, all the tattered maps of their seams, every unforgiving rub.