Stealing the Bowling Shoes

This isn't about the shoes.
It's about a field
and the sounds of thunder
and a number of startled birds
versus the number of birds still left
on some fence wire in a field
and the spaces between them.
It's about sociology, groups
versus individuals
and the smell of rain
before the rain and the risk
of getting caught in the rain
when it starts impinging
on the field. It's about feeling
the more alive the more you
take that risk. It's about walking out
into a field in a thunderstorm,
walking and not running
in your stocking feet through a field
full of birds disappearing thunderously
and the smell of rain and the smell
of danger. It's not about the shoes.
It was never about the shoes, those smooth
slippery shoes the color of exotic birds
on your feet. It's about your own shoes in your own
hands, and you opening a door with
one foot in that field and one foot out.


Paul Hostovsky's poems appear widely online and in print. He has been featured on Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, and The Writer's Almanac. His chapbook Dusk Outside the Braille Press won the Riverstone Press Poetry Chapbook Competition for 2006. Paul works in Boston as an interpreter for the Deaf. Visit his website at: www.paulhostovsky.com