Her paces

Her shoes are filthy. Those spots of white rubbed through the dirt, those shoes are caked with walked-in dust, asphalt lagoon silt, layed in the dirt dust asleep with legs together and feet stacked, rubbed in sleep those coats of dust branded into white fabric, gilt grey into the white fabric, the tiny particulates of rubbed rocks rubbed into something old, an old shoe and old worn stiff socks, ignored extremities, she does not know she is rubbing them together, can you not feel tall grassland seeds as they creep through holes in your sole, migrate through arches and into heel holes where they imbed in your fractured skin, those dirty skins, hardened, unfeeling callouses, these feet are in a different realm, below her horizon, forgotten, submerged, standing water makes the dirt on your feet real, it gives it a vehicle you cannot provide, your movements are not real, only the changes that accrue on your shoes, the holes, the skids, the grimy blooms, the skins have come from somewhere hidden, you have not been there, you have not catalogued the shifting seas of marks on your soles, you have not seen the sun reflect and be annihilated, the worn spots in the sea are where the land once rose and was washed away, down to the wooden piles, the caked on dried dirt, caked beneath splinters, her feet sink away, down into the silt where slow currents draw much across them, fill them with dark green water that rocks toeward and heelward in gently shuffling motions ever forward, the trudging life, your shoes are grimy, her socks are sagging around blue ankles, clotted grey socks, stretched elastic, frayed and hanging, a cowl parted by her foot and shivering out in wavering ripples as she steps, shake them out, peel them off and let them float atop a fresh puddle, let them breathe free from your skin, leave them to dry in the sun, afternoon evaporates the water from a flat stone, your socks left by the recessional tide, let them be free of you, go in peace, her shoes are old and worn, worn out, ruined, walk them to shambles.