Lily Foot

Did I hold the tiny Chinese shoe
or simply gaze at it 
encased in museum glass 
in the old mining town 
where thoughts escape 
down corridors? 
My eyes lock upon 
skeletal drawings 
of a normal foot 
beside the irreversible arch 
defined as beauty— 
minute foot bound 
at the pain and price of idea. 

It’s my mother’s foot, 
club at birth, 
diminished by seven surgeries,
necessitating a smaller shoe, 
a shorter, smaller leg, 
a limp, poor circulation. 
Small price to straighten 
what nature forgot— 
she can walk, 
run with halting gait. 
The day my child eyes 
notice her difference 
stands like a relic 
encased in glass.

Too recently, it is Shelly
of fifteen years, 
knocked senseless 
into the abutment of a bridge.
A year after the impact
my daughter and I 
walk into her room, 
her hands and feet curled
by an invisible binding
that smothers her voice,
fouls her alignment, 
and disguises all she is
except her wide clear eyes.