Hell Has No Courteous Neighbor in the Living

Clogs wait at their Welcome Mat like appetent dogs.

They’ve always worn clogs.

 

Clogs as slippers. Clogs.

Wooden clogs in shower:

 

sloshy clogs. As babies,

they were born with rounded wood limbs,

 

finessed to yield that gravid heel

that gloats on creaking slats of pine:

 

aligned floorboards so dull

they wait,  prostrate,

 

to be downtrod upon.

The glass we hear tossed down

 

we must ignore, or dare

to judge their interludes of mischief.

 

In jealous rages, we suspect

northward habitués of having blown

 

a gasket; hardy har.

We’ll barely note their changing

 

temperaments on purpose.

Let the sloth-feet argue,

 

let them carry on. We did:

the price we pay, condemned,

 

to have dressed our own sure feet

in lead.