A Slow Walk from the Market

I wanted to be the man in the loafers,

the kind who buys artisanal cheese

and doesn't look like he's vibrating

with a secret, frantic kind of shame.

But the leather is cheap and stiff,

and by the third block, the friction

became a heat, then a clear bubble,

a hot little pocket of fluid pressing

against the damp weave of my sock.

I’m limping past the florist, trying

to look natural, but the skin has quit.

It’s separated. It’s given up the ghost.

I keep reaching down to peel it—

I know, I know it'll only make it sting—

but there's something about the raw part,

the pink, unready shelf of myself,

that I can't stop wanting to see.