Footprints by Anthony Purdy

February 16, 2022
Poem name: Footprints Poet name: Anthony Purdy Poem begins: There is a language in the Pacific Northwest in which the words for footprint and understanding are one and the same. For some in the field of digital media cinema is index, an attempt to make art out of a footprint. Robinson Crusoe in his limbic solitude kept a calendar to tell him the footprint would be left by Friday. Metonymy, the trope of presence in absence, is the footprint in the sand that mutely mouths: we are not alone. The French for film is pellicule, a little skin that may be black and white or often pink on the soles of our feet. Our pink feet have swollen beyond recognition, the prints they leave out of all proportion with our understanding. End of poem. Credits: Copyright © Anthony Purdy Previously published in The Goose (Vol.18, no. 2, article 28, 2020). Anthony Purdy lives in Nova Scotia. His poems and stories have appeared in recent issues of The Dalhousie Review, The Fiddlehead, Fresh Voices, FreeFall, The Goose, Prairie Fire, and Queen’s Quarterly.