Luck's Shining Child

Because I am broke again
I have the sales of my shoes repaired
one at a time.

From now on one will always be
fat and slick with new leather
while his sad twin,

lean and thin as a fallen leaf,
will hug a large hole like a wound.
When it rains

one sock and one foot get wet.
When I cross the gravel parking lot
one foot winces

and I have to hop along on the other.
My students believe I am trying
to prove something.

They think I'm being a symbol of
dichotomy, duality, double-dealing,
yin and yang.

I am hopping because it hurts.
Because there is a hole in my shoe.
Because I feel poor for keeps.

What I am trying not to do
is imagine how it will be in my coffin,
heels down, soles up,

all rouged and grinning above my polished shoes,
one or the other a respectable brother
and one or the other

that wild prodigal whom I love
as much or more than his sleek companion,
luck's shining child.

By George Garret
Recipient of the 2006 Carole Weinstein Poetry Prize

Reprinted by permission of The University of Arkansas Press
from The Collected Poems of George Garrett.
Copyright © 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1969, 1961, 1962, 1963,
1964, 1966, 1967, 1978, 1981, 1984 by George Garrett.