To buy or not to buy, that is the question:
Whether ‘tis nobler for the foot to suffer
The corns and blisters of accursed footwear
or to take a hacksaw to your ankles
and by amputating, end them.

To cut-to chafe…to chafe perchance to blister-
Aye there’s the rub!
For in that shoe of death what cramps may come
When we have shuffled off this vicious circle
And our arches have fallen, must give us pause.
And there’s what makes a mockery of such bad shoes.

For who would bear the welts and sores of heels,
The podiatrist’s wrong, the proud man’s calluses.
The pangs of ignored feet, the insolence of shoe salesmen,
And the spurs that walking merit…

When there is another option?

Who would bunions bear, to grunt and sweat
Inside an airless shoe, but the dread of something
After the incision, that undiscovered gangrene
From whose bourn no limb returns,
Puzzles the will and makes us rather wear the shoes
We have than walk in others we know not of?

Thus ignorance does make cowards of us all…
But the native hue of resolution is illuminated
By a vibrant cast of thought, and in this regard
Our currents find a path
And we learn the name of action: SARA’S SHOES CHICAGO SOLES

adapted by
Rachel McIntosh, 1992