Sunday, August 20, 2017

Shoe shine man



Washington Street: Between Ellison and market

His face was a burnished and brown
As the shoes he shined,
That old man in the lobby
Of the office building
Across from City Hall,
Waiting on his three chairs
And the business men
Who came and went,
Hr dressed in suit like them
But never a tie,
Bent before them
With such dignity
I always paused at the door
To watch
After my mother brought me
A hot dog and Orange Julius
As we waited for the Number 3
Bus to go home
A man whose back was bent
From doing the same thing
For so long
He looked like the old tree
Next to my grandfather’s house
Body twisted, but not his mind,
As dedicated to this ritual
As a parish priest,
Serving not the men in the chair
Who took so little notice of him,
But to some ideal
I could sense but never see,
And he when seeing me,
Always smiled, and winked.

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