THE SHOES

The shoes
that I’ve been beating into submission
– walking through all seasons
in rain, hail,
day and night,
past rubber’s endurance –
the shoes I bought for.a song,
sensibly,
are shredding, sweating,
breaking seams
and becoming sole-less clones
of their earliest days
with me.

The shoes
that I had sworn to destroy
through misuse
after a glorious autumn of misspent youth
is finally fulfilling its destiny
and dying
underneath my heel.

The shoes,
at last,
are going away
which should make this a purposeful day
and yet, now,
what is there to do?
Without these companions,
what sort of trouble will I walk into?
Where can I possibly go now
sans shoes?