Charles Simic - My Shoes 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