my fifteenth birthday I got
cash so I drove to the mall
where I was bought
by the ugliest pair of shoes I could find.
Vans. Canvas Classics
in red, obnoxious.
sunny.
mom gave them a look-down,
tight lipped.
from then on
they owned me.
I laced ‘em
beneath the tongue &
we were off!
two dozen
concerts, someone else’s beer
sloshed on them,
a thousand dusty days
of high school and down to the
downtown of Detroit where I wore them
until they didn’t squeak,
they scraped, and stuck
particularly well
to the backs of
church pews
and skate boards.
Oh they knew the Holy Spirit and the holey
rawness of skin
versus pavement!
size 8 devils wrapped
in rubber and
trouble, gorgeous
fence-scalers,
treasure excavators
and ditch
explorers.
filthy.
my nineteenth birthday I got
the hose, sprayed
those tomes ‘til they let
the dirt loose but
left the
stories intact.
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