The shoe-shiner

The shoe-shiner awaits my weighted feet
as they slither atop the baited street
in moccasins made of glass
that pierce my flesh and shatter
with each step I'm pained and tattered

Through his mucked towel and simple eyes
he stares blinded against merchant buys
and dips petroleum tar
to polish the perishing skin
and bandage my wounds again

On the corner street he rests on his knees
his tired legs beg their calloused pleas
and cry for pillowed plush
while the make-suited patrons' collars
hide silken ties and gold dollars

As I plod on my path of cobblestone
his tired eyes shut on his cement throne
shedding them saltwater tears
leeched up straight from the shallows
in a hood he heads for the gallows

There he rests in a heap, grayed hair all askew
my feet wear the face of his final shoe
embraced by a leather hand
draped with wrinkled erosion and age
and the masterly touch of a sage

One more fate that has flown from the stills
one abandoned craftsman tucked 'neath the hill
dressed in a broken sheet
an apparition I'll surely appear
listening well with percussion ear

Pressed flush with the soil, the sound of the feet
march in funeral procession to number the street
casting blooms into the gutters
and littering sidewalks with the skin
of those who've grown old, the lost and forgotten