My Shoes by Charles Simic Lyrics

Shoes, secret face of my inner life:
Two gaping toothless mouths
Two partly decomposed animal skins
Smelling of mice-nests

My brother and sister who died at birth
Continuing their existence in you
Guiding my life
Toward their incomprehensible innocence

What use are books to me
When in you it is possible to read
The Gospel of my life on earth
And still beyond, of things to come?

I want to proclaim the religion
I have devised for your perfect humility
And the strange church I am building
With you as the altar

Ascetic and maternal, you endure:
Kin to oxen, to Saints, to condemned men
With your mute patience, forming
The only true likeness of myself