High heels.
Portable pinnacles
to teeter on for others’ titillation,
back arched as if on the edge
of orgasm or some lovers’ leap.
The spine loses its spring
& the feet their feeling.
Toes in a too-small toebox
jostle & twist like
a litter of kittens
tied up in a sack.
OTHER POSTS IN THE SERIES
- Dog Logic
- The Colors of Noise
- Crossing Wales
- Memo from the CEO of Little Prince, Inc.
- Poems to be shaved into the hair of the author’s back
- Desideratum
- Capture
- Living in Analog
- Organ Meats: A Primer
- Walking Weather
- Beach Glass
- Tree Without Birds
- Hermit
- The Captain’s Reverses
- Pets
- Exchange
- Heart
- Digital
- The Fullness of Time
- Pandora
- Reading the Icelandic Sagas
- Hit the Lights
- Vagina Dialogue
- Helmsman
- Old Norse Family Values
- On Hold
- Heels
- Looking for the Reader
- The conversation continues: two videopoems
“Toes in a too-small toe box…” made me recall a news article on how some women are having elective surgery of their little toes so their feet can better slide into expensive, narrow designer shoes. Led to the poem I wrote here – http://www.poemeleon.org/luisa-igloria2
Wonder what made you write your poem, Dave!
Yikes!
As with all the poems in the Conversari series, this came out of a conversation with Rachel. (She can stop by and elaborate on her recent painful experience if she wishes.)
Said article mentioned that elective surgery of little toes costs something between 1-2K$ each at the minimum.
$2000 a toe! HFS.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2236039/Off-pinky-How-high-heel-obsessed-women-removing-toes-stiletto-surgery-comfier-fit.html
The event: father’s 80th birthday lunch; the venue: a club in Mayfair; my wardrobe: inadequate. Thus it was that, the morning before, desperate measures had to be taken. The internet was consulted, sale sites visited and a pair of shoes: smart, soft leather, rich tan, “extremely comfortable” according to all the reviews, was purchased. For delivery the next day. They have a three inch wedge heel and a very cute thin bow at the front, and arrived 40 minutes before I left the house. It should probably be recorded at this point that, not only had I not tried the shoes on, I had knowingly ordered a size larger than my own since it was all that was left in stock. Another piece of information which might be germane is the fact that I have not worn three inch heels since I was about 15. Our first pas de deux, these shoes and I, was when I slipped them on and walked out of the house. I did, in fact, manage something that might, if observed from a distance, be charitably labelled “walking” for a distance of about ten yards. At that point I stopped, leaned on a convenient wall, and stuffed a tissue in the toe of each shoe. This, you will no doubt be unsurprised to learn, improved the situation only in as much as each shoe no longer fell off at each step, merely at every third step. The trade-off was extreme pain in the toes as they rammed at an angle of precipitous degree against the unyielding yet still inadequate tissue. (The bleeding blisters which were almost immediately raised on the back of each achilles tendon we cannot blame on the heels since I find them a feature of most shoes whatever their design.) I was now not running late, I was hobbling pregnant-duck-with-broken-legs late and could occasionally be heard to emit a genuine and heartfelt groan of great pain along the 0.8 mile route to the underground station. When there, on the blessed relief of a seat, a second tissue was added to the first in each toe. Suffice it to say that, when required to walk again at the destination, this proved merely to increase the agony while reducing the slipping-off a minimal amount. On returning I took a longer route which required less walking but even so the moment I was disgorged onto a platform near home I removed the tormenting toe-boxes and danced home in stockinged feet. Or I would have done if my toes hadn’t been so bruised and swollen as to allow merely an animated shuffle. But oh the sweet relief of release from that torturing confinement.
Yikes! What a trial! If you had gone barefoot like a forest nymph, would anyone have minded? I hope you have given your poor feet a good long soak and lots of pampering after such torture!
Oh and next time perhaps a nice soft ballerina flat in good black (or dark brown) leather will be more comforting. They look good with “formal” wear.
I like this a lot. HATE heels, especially those new weapon-grade ones.
Glad the poem worked for you, then. I was feeling as if I should’ve walked a mile in Rachel’s shoes before attempting to write it.