poem of the day 01.07.15

shoes

i don’t know how

we got on the topic of shoes

i think scott mentioned them

because he was wearing white shoes

therapeutic shoes for what i don’t remember

we were listening to serge chaloff before

i think we still were

this was before or after scott put on

the version of miles davis’ birth of the cool

without darn that dream fucking it up at the end

i stopped drinking two hours ago

and came into the living room to listen to music

in lieu of making conversation with anyone

but talking about shoes is all right

for a saturday night

at least it’s not talking about cancer

i showed scott my shoes

a pair of beaten-to-death gray vans

that i typically walk five miles a day in

i tell him that one foot wears an eleven

but the other foot is almost in a ten and a half

the result of an accident that i had when i was a kid

and i ran through a glass window

i fucked up a lot of tendons, i tell scott

but i think maybe he’s listening to the serge chaloff

or he’s still talking about putting out broadsides next year

i look at my shoes

my feet look normal when i’m in them

when the shoes are off i have one man-sized foot

and one foot that could almost be a child’s

i probably need some kind of cushion or a custom fit

but like most things in my life

i never bothered to get this fixed

when i look up scott has an otis redding album

ready to go on

otis blue/otis redding sings soul

he says that he has a poem about it

then he goes to get the poem

while ole man trouble starts on the record player

and i can’t help but tap my feet on the floor.