When the Body Stops

Only the feet.
The most honest parts of a person 
the ones untouched by deceit,
carrying every mile in silence,
every road hardened into skin.

They remain here 
resting, suspended,
or simply finished with moving.
No ground below.
No distance ahead.
Only the grey hush of having been
somewhere,
and the calm of no longer
needing to go.

The toes are marked 
small, quiet inscriptions,
as if the body kept its own ledger
of distance,
of what it cost.

Charcoal holds them gently,
the way memory keeps
what the mind cannot 
in outline,
in shadow,
in the faint shape of something
that once walked the world
and left almost nothing behind.

We begin with the ground.
We return to it.
These feet have always known.

Object number

013.041