Tender are the soles

The body whines inaudibly
running organs with life's
friction or electrically charged
circles, as if one organism
could be fulfilled.

Cash can be exchanged for dignity,
pennies and thoughts are donated
in parking lots and churches
liberally, naked feet are sensitive
where there are rocks worn down
to pebbles by caloussed souls
heaving their weight in grains
of sand.

A mile more
to go
with these legs, feebled and folded
they foretell the weight of what we carry,
with the shoulders pinned to the sky
the strings held us up, dancing and frayed,
until the puppeteer, robotics engineer, and fear
take over,

it was all for the show,
since there was nothing the human could tell
about soles moving on
light as can be
like water
we cannot breathe.


Painting by Ford Madox Brown [Public domain], 'Jesus washing Peter's feet' c. 1852-56 via Wikimedia Commons.