Learning to Walk

Inspired by Samantha

(You can’t help it: Toe strap area
sounds to you just like that little room
where they search folks at airports.) What’s first?

You slip phalanges, metatarsals
under the open-toe band.
The piggies gather, obedient.


(Ankle strap zone sounds like the hottest
BDSM club in town���which fits:
Blisters Deliver Such Misery.)

But you pull it around���medial
malleolus, then the lateral���
how fabulleolus these lovely bits!


What’s last? (You snap in Patroclus’s
tendon into the curving heel cups,
then consider that which you must do.)

You rise, with your weight shifting forward;
you align your hips at a slight tilt;
you can feel your calves, spine, core when


you begin to walk on your own two feet.