Old Shoe
 
What extremity has brought you here,
This city square, without a peer?
 
Where is your mate? Were you a pair?
Do you seek him everywhere?
 
Who soaked you through with mud and sod,
Limping into town half-shod?
 
Did he slip in from fields beyond,  
Your partner left afloat a pond?
 
What passions burst? Did clothing tear?  
Perhaps a body now lies bare,
 
The other shoe in weeds or mulch,
In river bed or muddy gulch?
 
Or did a drunkard just forget you,
Too far gone to lace up two?
 
Down at the heel, scuffed up, loose-laced,
Eyes and tongue worn out; defaced.
 
What caused him to discard just one?
Old shoe, now here, poor singleton.
 
Your past is unreliable,
Your pathos undeniable,
 
Old shoe.

Susan de Sola

If you have any thoughts on this poem,  Susan de Sola  would be pleased to hear them.