Isaac

by Justin Danzy





He needed money for shoes,  

his heel bruised and bulging  

out the back of his sock.  

He showed it to us, his foot,  

placed it on the table near an omelette.  

It was an ugly foot, all ashy and calloused  

and crooked-toed. His achilles thickened  

with scar; his pinky toenail missing.  

He needed money for shoes, Isaac,  

with his factory worker feet, his clothes ragged  

like a sharecropper. He was from Chicago  

and a spiritual man, he said, his brothers  

named Abraham and Methuselah. A half-sister  

named Faith. He needed money for shoes  

and a job and a prayer group. We had none of it,  

our prayers stale and mechanic, pockets shallow.  

I showed him mine so he’d believe, Isaac,  

a spiritual man, his foot causing  

the coffee’s surface to ripple, which it did  

even after he set his foot down  

and ambled into the morning light,  

his backpack with the broken strap  

slung around him like armor, his foot ugly  

and exposed, like his black gums  

when he said he loved me  

and reached both hands towards mine  

so he could hold them.





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