There is a shoe fence at the mouth of Spanish Fork Canyon. It is an odd structure of stories. There is no narrator or plaque explaining the wooden posts—each topped with a leather or canvas or genuine vinyl shoe. There are: small dancing shoes and large logger shoes; pumps, clogs, wing tips, oxfords, boots with laces and without; steel toes and worn toes, pointed and round; square-toed harness boots, Keds for running; and comfy Grandma shoes, too. All are worn past practical use but the stories they must tell is what interests me.
There is a size 12 with basketball wins and losses. Quick pivots and stops have worn the ball to nearly nothing. A Tony Lama is curled at the tip and worn at the heel from wrangling and kicking pies then dancing its cowgirl through the night. There is a boy’s shoe worn clear through from coaxing rocks down a gravel road. Blue ink has carefully colored Lisa on the side and it makes me wonder what kind of boy drew his girl’s name for me to see.
In the winter, the row of misfits look like 100 legs kicking their way up through the snow—seeking warmth from the sun. Somehow, the childrens’ shoes seem more stark than the others. Most are scuffed and too small to wrap their tongues around the post. They seem too temporary, too tossed-out before their time, too small for the large lives they must have lived. And I consider what warmth a new pair would give to an eight- or twelve-year-old who writes longings on its sole.
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