MARGIE, THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF POETRY

Back from swimming, open mail and there's Margie, The American Journal of Poetry, 2007, an annual of poetry, (440 pages!) edited by Robert Nazarene and (among others), Troy Jollimore, Canadian poet-friend and author of Tom Thomson in Purgatory. Cover photo bears the caption, Robert Nazarene, "The Boy With Nothing To Lose."

Margie includes One-Stop Foot Shop, one of the poems slated for this "work in progress" (see Blog posting #1), Dr. Sward's Cure for Melancholia. Hard to know who reads these things, but here's the poem:


ONE-STOP FOOT SHOP

Podiatrist Father:

“We walk with angels
and they are our feet.

“‘Vibrating energy packets,’” he calls them. “‘Bundles of soul
in a world of meat.’ Early warning system—
dry skin and brittle nails;
feelings of numbness and cold;
these are symptoms; they mean something.
I see things physicians miss.

“All you have to do is open your eyes, just open your eyes,
and you’ll see: seven-eighths of everything is invisible, a spirit
inside the spirit.
The soul is rooted in the foot.
As your friend Bly says, ‘The soul longs to go down’;
feet know the way to the other world,
that world where people are awake.
So do me a favor: dream me no dreams.
A dreamer is someone who’s asleep.

“You know, the material world is infinite,
but boring infinite,” he says, cigarette in hand,
little wings fluttering at his ankles.

“And women,” he says, smacking his head,
“four times as many foot problems as men.
High heels are the culprit.

“I may be a podiatrist, but I know what I’m about:
feet. Feet don’t lie,
don’t cheat, don’t kiss ass. Truth is,
peoples’ feet are too good for them.”