Untied Shoes
laid to rest on a wooden chair
size 5, a young child’s feet
Inhabited the shoes, the leather,
the creases, and the blackness
inside
but the feet left the shoes
behind long ago
like butterflies leave their cocoons
bare feet the child is free
from the tightness of the shoes
from restrictions set at home, school,
and in the world — on how a child is supposed to be
on how feet are supposed to walk, ankles straight,
toes forward, not curved
unlike butterflies
bare feet the child is free
from a hard leather structure and laces
but the feet are not innocent
they walked places
they sweated, smelt, and
they bled from blisters
with wings barely ready to fly, new
the feet are running on grass
Earth capturing their blood
and cleaning their wounds
like a mother would clean
a child’s hurt knee after playing
outdoors
into the wind
the shoes are left behind
as a print, a signature
that once a child
was captive
here
Alicia Wyneken is a poet and scholar. She also won a poetry contest for Portrait of a Mother (Hearts in Orbit) and has been published in journals in both the US and the UK. She is a Ph.D. student in Cultural Studies at Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, California and holds an M.S. in Psychology from Mount Saint Mary’s University, Los Angeles, and an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University, Los Angeles. She is also a consultant for the Foster Youth kinship program at Antelope Valley College, California. Alicia currently lives with her family in Palmdale, California.