ManicDDaily

Shoe

I got my shoes shined today for a special evening event (which delayed my posting till now).  I don’t get my shoes shined very often, so it provided useful material for today’s poem draft (as well as a beautiful dark sheen.)

Shoeshine

He stiffens his finger with
a wrapped flap of plastic then, with the precision of
a surgeon, binds it with a worn swathe of
fabric.  In a world in which all is disposable, his cloth
is ragged, frayed, stained, authentically used.
Like so, like so—he sprinkles a dose of something clear, then,
after rubbing my dark
rounded toes, delves his finger into the thin can which holds
the black, more tar than jet,
the color of spider bellies, widows’ skirts,
that shadow in the cheek of certain saints outlined by
El Greco, the eyebrow of Frieda Kahlo.
He is short, as they tend to be, born in mountains,
where height adds insult to
uphill climbs, a slight tilt a part of the landscape.
He strokes the sides of my shoes
as he paints them; I feel the strokes
in the sides of my feet,
the ribs of the arches, like a very
polite massage, the caress of the humble, and think of the feet
of certain statues, whose insteps have been worn
into silent tongues by those
seeking blessings, though I
feel blessed by him, his attentions, the worn, made new.
It is something of which we don’t speak.

This entry was posted on April 19, 2010 at 11:58 pm and is filed under poetry, Uncategorized, writing exercises. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags: 19th Day of National Poetry Month, manicddaily, Manicddaily pencil drawing, ManicDDaily poetry, National Poetry Month, poem about shoeshines, shoes