poetryvlog.com - The Shoe

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The Shoe
by Carol Emerson

Funny how a bad man sticks to you
like fresh tar squishes
into the lugs of a shoe and little bits stay put
even when you scrape out the part you can see
and those shoes never glide as quickly
as before across a polished floor
having developed an affinity for dirt.

You were a lie I loved.
The “professor” who was fee for hour
the “poet” who couldn’t risk publishing
the wine connoisseur--a silent drunk.

It’s taken four years
one year for every month I knew you
Nina Simone is singing “The Other Woman”
the sky shrieks redemption
and for an instant I think about driving down
to your little house on the pond
visualize your lopsided grin
when you open the door…

Before I remember--
you are not who I loved.
You are only the potato on which I placed
all those Mr. Potato Head parts of me
that stick like tar
that cling to solid earth.

Cemerson
1/07

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