As the days bled out of the fall,
Ensconced against a café wall,
With shoulders hunched and posture small,
I sat and waited for the pall
With him, my stupid muse
Behind my lids his visage swirled:
Rosy cheeks like a flower girl,
With bony hands and brown hair curls,
The boy with yellow shoes.
Perhaps through shop racks he did sift
And picked the flaxen shoes with thrift,
Or following his yearly shrift
Did get them as a Christmas gift
Those shiny yellow shoes.
Oh, with this goof I was enthralled
And though he had begun to bald,
My love for him was not forestall’d,
Nor his love for his shoes.
But Grim & Evil lay ahead
As I lay in my warm made-bed,
And soon all’s left would be his stead,
With me lain in the red of dread;
Him sunken in the blues.
And yet I knew ‘twas worth the fight
Vain affection was my plight
I cast myself into the light,
And never met those shoes.