by Lisa Seidenberg
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The Transportation Safety Administration will allow passengers at airports across the country to keep their footwear on as they go through security checkpoints, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told reporters Tuesday. —NBC News, July 8, 2025
First, you think of the man
who may be seated directly in front of you,
most likely in the aisle seat.
He removes his shoes
and detonates a device that
rips a massive cavity in the plane.
A calamity of destruction, if it happens.
Now your eyes focus
on the security line, all of us bobbing
like impatient concert-goers at
the entrance to a stadium.
We all know the drill, observe
the youngsters padding in anklets,
business men in dress socks,
the stylish women with footwear
printed with tropical fruit
or emojis or happy animals.
And the unfortunate ones who wore
the pair with a hole in the toe.
It brings back the trip with my grandmother
to Bloomies for shoes and her look
of horror at my sorry worn-out socks.
Laptops and shoes in the conveyer bin,
in our soft feet, we enter the sacred space
of the screening capsule, humbled and quiescent
as if entering a Japanese shrine.
Once cleared to recover our shoes,
we feel a private relief that we are safer now.
No harm will come from anyone in this line.
We’ve all had our communal foot baring,
our moment of bonding, a quick
but meaningful intimacy
which we are now informed
was an unnecessary and pointless action,
after all.
