"Boot Theory"

Richard Siken



A man walks into a bar and says:

Take my wife–please.

So you do.

You take her out into the rain and you fall in love with her

and she leaves you and you’re desolate.

You’re on your back in your undershirt, a broken man

on an ugly bedspread, staring at the water stains

on the ceiling.

And you can hear the man in the apartment above you

taking off his shoes.

You hear the first boot hit the floor and you’re looking up,

you’re waiting

because you thought it would follow, you thought there would be

some logic, perhaps, something to pull it all together

but here we are in the weeds again,

here we are

in the bowels of the thing: your world doesn’t make sense.

And then the second boot falls.

And then a third, a fourth, a fifth.

A man walks into a bar and says:

Take my wife–please.

But you take him instead.

You take him home, and you make him a cheese sandwich,

and you try to get his shoes off, but he kicks you

and he keeps kicking you.

You swallow a bottle of sleeping pills but they don’t work.

Boots continue to fall to the floor

in the apartment above you.

You go to work the next day pretending nothing happened.

Your co-workers ask

if everything’s okay and you tell them

you’re just tired.

And you’re trying to smile. And they’re trying to smile.

A man walks into a bar, you this time, and says:

Make it a double.

A man walks into a bar, you this time, and says:

Walk a mile in my shoes.

A man walks into a convenience store, still you, saying:

I only wanted something simple, something generic…

But the clerk tells you to buy something or get out.

A man takes his sadness down to the river and throws it in the river

but then he’s still left

with the river. A man takes his sadness and throws it away

but then he’s still left with his hands.

I promise I'll get the hang of it sometime before the end of the week.M, substituting for K