Pages

Sunday, November 26, 2017

Secret Faces

Shoes
—Painting by Vincent van Gogh, 1888



MY SHOES
—Charles Simic 
 
Shoes, secret face of my inner life:  
Two gaping toothless mouths,
Two partly decomposed animal skins  
Smelling of mice nests.

My brother and sister who died at birth  
Continuing their existence in you,
Guiding my life
Toward their incomprehensible innocence.

What use are books to me
When in you it is possible to read  
The Gospel of my life on earth
And still beyond, of things to come?

I want to proclaim the religion
I have devised for your perfect humility  
And the strange church I am building  
With you as the altar.

Ascetic and maternal, you endure:
Kin to oxen, to Saints, to condemned men,  
With your mute patience, forming
The only true likeness of myself.

____________________

—Medusa

For more about Yugoslavian poet Charles Simic, see www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/charles-simic/. To hear “My Shoes” read aloud, go to www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42948/my-shoes/.