SHOES SPELL

SHOES SPELL


♠


The A, the E, the I, the O, the U


Mirrors dissolving on my tongue,


Eclipsing my breath.


I AM . . . dot dot


A pot of luck


Next to my best shoes on my altar.


Is it tonight I sink that boat


Of my last judgment?


‘Not I’, said I, ‘will live with ghosts,


The ghosts of language,


The ghosts of what dictates I am the queen of something.'


My shoes know better when they retrace my steps to the young pauper,


ME. BUT.


It was my nothing that got the better of you.


I will find you, if I must,


At the bottomless sea where I put you.


But tonight,


Tonight I place my black shoes on my altar,


To venerate the stories that they tell,


While my naked toes sink into lust,


And the telluric forces of what must


Just BE.


© Camelia Elias