the need takes the lead in the dance to the next stage

Through the silence, the shoes are a night

without a body to share a bed with, while

a storm builds outside the bedroom window. Naked 

is she without her red shoes; red

is the sky in the dream of the shoes at her feet. 

A woman is a woman without red shoes

laced on her arched feet, but the shoes dance

once she laces the shoes on her arched feet,

once her feet are arched in the shoes, red

will be the color of her toenails and the soles

of her feet. But what of her soul? The soul will be laced up,

too, and the dance will be a dance of a night in bed

with a lover through a storm. The need to dance

is the same as the need to live, without questions,

without knowing the next step. The need takes

the lead in the dance to the next stage, to the next lover

until the dance is all she knows, all she needs. 

Yes the shoes lead to a door inside her;

the door opens a room she didn't know existed.

Once inside, she dances the dance of no return,

a threat she refuses to heed, a space she must explore,

closing a door behind her, on the woman

she believed she was before the shoes kept beat to a tune

to which she hangs on for life, barely keeping up.

[A. Van Jordan {1965- } 'The Red Shoes' from The Cineaste: Poems]