Poop Boots

Laces tied years ago remain tightly undone, and

zippers released let my ankles wobble but breathe

every sleepy morning, when the dog whines at sunrise and

I drag my drowsy head off the pillow to take him out

into the dewy grass and mist, up the hill to the crape myrtle he's pissed on

every day since

we moved.

-

But there they are every morning, unmoved, right

where I left them by the coat rack and the door with

their leather toes cracking and their heels wearing

down to threads while the soles erode like layers of

rock in a grand feet canyon under toe sweat rivers and the thin lining

gapes open

like caves.

-

Sometimes the grass peeps through the sagging gap

between leather and sole at my toe tip and I feel the

blades or a leaf or a raindrop or a stick or a bug but

never the little moundy piles of molding poop the dog

made last night that melted in the rain and then hardened in the heat

of a Virginia

summer.

-

My shield against all things vile and squishy are those

boots I found in the clearance section, I'm sure, of some

shoe store when I was a poor college kid with nothing

to love except my style and my flair, which now I

flaunt every breaking dawn in backyard moisture mess while the dog takes

dumps a leash

away.

-

I dream of intact, matte-finished muckers without laces or

zippers, just friendly soles with puddle defenses, but

my trusty, morning bathroom-trip side kicks are doing

just fine for a poor young adult with nothing

to love except the yard the dog craps in by the house along the highway that

for now

is home.

-

This poem was written in response to the Ode to Ordinary Challenge issued by Vocal: "Write an ode to an ordinary object."