Misfits

          Researchers Examining Medieval Skeletons Find Really Bad Bunions

          –NPR, June 11, 2021

 

I look to my sandals basket and choose a pair to wear.

It’s summer, my feet won’t know socks or shoes until fall.

I want my feet to be like coyotes – free and roaming fields

colored by wildflower crayons. That’s why I won’t

buy shoes unless they feel like slippers on my feet.

A librarian at the college where I work confessed to me

her fetish for footwear. She loves their stylish looks,

though she never goes barefoot anymore because her feet

are messed up wearing these senseless shoes. That’s

what we can call them, yes? The flipside of “sensible shoes”

that support and don’t harm? Earlier this month, NPR

reported that researchers examined 700-year-old skeletons

to discover gross degeneration of the bones

in their feet – painful bunions they got from wearing

the popular pointy shoes in medieval Britain. Like a foot

can fit properly into a baguette. Come on, people —

wise up! Bones repeatedly abused turn into bruised knobs, some

turn gangrene, damaged from the pressure and scrapes. I want

my pups to thrive like coyotes and bears roaming in fields.