unglassed

i'd like to think they put
them here, in some
half-insouciant effort to be found
by a lover
who takes them,
in a fit of passion,
the way that happily-
ever-after tied things up
nicely for you-know-who.

the world has never worked that
way, really. it's filled
with the dead ends of
guilt and the traffic stops
of never-ending untidy
shame in which so many
of my friends have found
themselves drowning;
this universe has no driver.

but i'd like to think they put
them here, stained with
the imprint of heavy feet,
like a bronze chalk outline,
and that this lover discovers
them and goes about
their kingdom on a horse,
or at the very least a compact car
that they had to buy
second-hand,

with a bad odometer and
a slack tire;
and that they have only coins to
pay for gas and that they have a bad
tooth, and that they forget to call
their ailing mother, and
that they've been reduced by some
for being less-than and
that they're lost in a small-cloud way.

so that when they find
their lover, and slip on these
unglassed sandals with their
toe-prints and smelling like
ripe unreasonable failings,
she appreciates that they
came back anyway, despite the
world's caving-ins, and that she
knew it was for a just cause.