"A Shoe in the Road"
. . . I'm thinking the shoe
is the start of this trail: shoe here, wallet miles away, purse
in a drainage ditch, her whereabouts un-known, missing,
presumed to have disappeared like the subtle act of minutes
becoming years and regret, unnoticed be cause of the good
fraud of tomorrow; scarf caught on a rudderin Vancouver,
carried there the way good intentions, balloons, messages
and medicines in bottles can span incredible odds and distances,
germs and fragrances hitchhike in water, air, hopeful
as gyroscopes, and claim the world, global links triggered
by practically nothing at all: a shoe in the road
that fell from a bag hastily packed as a woman who hadn't
in years but believed one evening would again dance,fled
a brutality increasingly possible to imagine
behind game show doors and car doors, all doors
or that hit the road falling from a mishandled generosity
when it wasn't loaded well on the charity's blue truck
-- still there was something contrary to aggression
behind the gesture although this shoe probably
won't be the one helping someone recover fox trots . . .
