I got holes in my soles
and I aint so proud that I cant
admit it
Ive stuffed paper in my shoes
to save my socks
but paper slips
wears through
and now I got dirty socks
with holes in em too
as a boy
Id take my shoes to a dago
shoemaker in the neighborhood who resurrected them
he was a short thing
crazy little moustache lazy eye
but damn if he couldnt make dem
dogs well again
his shop smelled of leather
tobacco and greasy hair tonic
like the apothecary on the street
corner near the funeral home
nice enough guy
though Id never trust him
that eye
he said itd been since birth
yeah whose birth I wondered
I credit him for me learning the
word equivocate
its meaning
he was always vague ya couldnt hold onto him long enough to nail
him down
so I made sure the only time we
visited
it was brief small talk in n
out pay the man for his work
I really liked his work
then one day he was gone
shop CLOSED
like the cardboard sign
dangling in the front window
never OPENed again
we kids hung out near it
the park and swimming pool just
up the street
and through the dirty windows
between the blinds
I could make out shelves formed
into cubbies holding unclaimed shoes
leather working tools on a
counter and on a table
through a beaded curtain at the
back where he lived
behind the shop
I had an aunt who lived that
way
you passed through her
profession before you entered her life
an uncle too who was a tailor
my doctor lived in a two-flat
on the second floor his office on the first
a beaded curtain a door
a staircase
slim veneers then between doing
and living
identities
the cop the grocer the baker
the shoemaker
my aunt uncle and doctor were
buried in cemeteries under gravestones
I still think of that dago
shoemaker
it usually coincides when I get
holes in my soles
and Im forced to throw my shoes
away
rather than having them
resurrected
its as close to a resurrection
that dago will ever have
a hole in my sole
1649, Saturday,
8 2. 14
