photoart: ralph murre
A Pair
of Shoes
by
Constance Vogel Adamkiewicz
In
an alley lined with dumpsters
where
only rats want to forage
stands
a pair of shoes--
men's,
crow-black and shiny,
slightly
creased as if worn only once.
Not
discarded on their sides
but
upright, as far apart
as
the man who wore them
might
have stood.
Yet,
who, no matter how foolhardy
after
a night on the town,
who
would run shoeless down this gangway
of
stones and broken glass?
Not
that I abhor the waste,
but
the sight of them, like broken birds,
makes
me fear
something
bad has happened.
Maybe
no one is missing,
but
someone watching
behind
the curtain of a high window,
camera
on the sill waiting to shoot
a
film noir of the passer-by
who
stops, examines the soles,
tries
them on and wobbles off like Chaplin.
Someone
who looks around first
as
if a bomb might go off.
~
first published in After Hours
