Poem of the Week #33

To the Makers of Shoe Boxes

Please sell me my shoes plain and unboxed.
Let me take them home in my bare hands
or in a cloth bag given me by my grandmother.

Stop cutting down the rain forest to make boxes
for shoes—too sturdy to be thrown out
and too numerous to be useful. They pile up

throughout my house, waiting to be of service;
but there are no more letters for them to hold,
and only so much junk from the kitchen table.

Many a summer morning I have spent breaking down
shoe boxes to be recycled into more of same. A waste
of my time, a waste of yours. Not to mention the trees.

Let us be free of shoe boxes and, come to think of it,
even shoes. Let us spend our days sun-drenched, walking
barefoot on sand, polishing dead skin from our feet.


Lisa Vihos