work boots

seven holed
size eleven
ankle high
onyx black
mud-kickers
w/ ridgeway
treads
leather footbeds
furrowed
at full
grained toes

(grinding, binding)
(moiling, toiling)
(drudgery, fudgery, trudgery)

are they working?

wrestling w/ the divine
days steeped
in clangor cahoots
& other soots
flung fomently
into a path

are they working, the boots?

(slogging, dragging, slugging)
(hauling, trawling, heaving)

BOOTS FOR HIRE! BOOTS FOR HIRE!

no walk-arounds
just plodding right though
w/ tight bellows tongue
​the only pass