X-Ray Fitting

Dad says that when he was little
they used to X-Ray your feet 
at the shoe store to check if 
your new shoes fit right. Peering down 

through the microscope-like eye piece,
he'd see the bones, moving them up &
down, two wriggling rainbow trout.
His bones glowing back at him, smiling

toe knuckles. The nails, white petaled
flowers grinning up at him, saying
this is what you are inside, luminous bone,
rocks under skin walking across rocks

outside of skin. The meeting of stone.
I am probably heavier than I think.
When I look down at my feet I see 
Dad's bones. I see a rock collection:

quartz and calcite. I put on shoes
and pace the hallway in my house, trying
to step back into the X-Ray machine, this time 
with my whole body. Laying down inside it, 

a clerk checking my whole skeleton to see
if it fits, if my whole skeleton fits.
It always feels tight, like my skin wanted 
to stretch across a smaller collection of gravel,

like someone tried to fit mountain ranges
in me. My feet turn into the bones 
of rainbow trout, so I let them sit 
in the bath tub practicing their gills.

I imagine Dad, a little boy in the backseat
on the car ride home with his new shoes. 
Does he cross his legs? No, he doesn't. 
He stares at his shoes, leather church shoes.

They're a little tight, he thinks and considers
taking them off, considers sitting there barefoot,
considers that his bones would be closer to being free. 
Glances down at his fingers, remembers they have bones too.