By Jonathan Everitt
Dim-lit shoe store: Gallery of Wonders for defective
limbs where mother ushers me for my first pair
of corrective shoes at 6. Gone are my Buster Browns,
dandy derbies traded for Frankenstein
platforms engineered to straighten kinks
the doctor says have led to pigeon toes.
By 12 my classmates mock my trot. How swiftly
a strange stride translates to sissy. Did you know
the feet contain a quarter of our bones?
A new orthopedist lays me out on a table in his lab in my
underwear, toys with my feet, my ankles. Puzzles
over my articulated hinges and flawless toes.
He lifts one leg. Bends one knee. Swivels inward the faulty
hinge as if adjusting a doll and then pronounces the error
isn’t in my feet; it’s in my hips. There in my pelvis—
warm seat of everything—turns out I’ve been twisted
since birth. Only posture practice can make my gait straight.
Did you know the body’s thickest skin is in the sole?
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Jonathan Everitt’s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Laurel Review, BlazeVox, Scarlet Leaf Review, Small Orange, Impossible Archetype, Ghost City Press, The Bees Are Dead, The Empty Closet, Lake Affect, and the Moving Images poetry anthology, among others. Jonathan earned his MFA in creative writing from Bennington College. He lives in Rochester, N.Y., with his partner, David Sullivan. He can be found on Threads at @jonathan_everitt; on Instagram at @jonathan_everitt; and on Facebook: at facebook.com/jgeveritt