PEBBLE IN MY SHOE

She looks at you with disdain

then scratches her arm as if to say

you're nothing but a mosquito.

And then the dog comes

following her

like she's the Queen of Sheba

on her way to her coronation.

I take the shoe off

fiddle with my sock

and sure enough

there's that little pebble

looks like it chipped off from the side of a tombstone.

Hard as granite with sharp edges

stained with the blood of an old foot

that's stuffed into a beat-up old Oxford

that lawyers used to wear to court

but now just a cast-off

soleless article purchased at the Goodwill store.

Think I'll take the stone back home

and throw it in the fish tank

along with the plastic diver and the skull.

Should have stayed home.

Home where the wine bottles wait

and the computer mocks

and the cat curls up on the windowsill

staring out at the rain

like he's waiting for Godot

or maybe just another hot day.

I light my pipe and 

watch the smoke curl and dance

wonder if it’s all worth it

this stumbling through life

collecting stones in my shoes

and dreams in my head

and regrets in my heart.

The blonde’s gone now

probably didn’t even notice me

or the way I limped off that bench

stone in hand

and the dog

he’s off sniffing some other corner of the world

living in a way I can’t quite understand.

I sit at my desk and stare at screen

the words don’t come

not tonight

not with the stone sitting in the fish tank

mocking me like everything else in this distorted world.

Living is like walking

on a hot sidewalk

with gravel in your shoes

sometimes you don’t know how that damned little stone got there

but you keep walking

because what else is there to do?

© Richard Gordon Zyne