Worse For Wear

I bought a pair of boots in 92.
Simple black leather,
steel spur holders sewn on the sides.
The best 99 dollars I ever spent.
I call them 760's,
7 dollars and 60 cents a year
if you do the math.

Worn leather, broken in.
Run down at the heel.
North Dakota, Maine, Las Vegas,
New Orleans, New Mexico.
California, to the hell of Death Valley,
and always they carried me back.
Covering my feet in rain,
sliding me across the ice,
away from a rocky marriage.

Last time I saw the 760's
they were in
the corner of a lover's room,
not kicked off, not thrown,
place with care
with an address tag
tied to the spur holder.
A bootery to patch holes
too big for duct tape.

At a house in New Orleans
my boots waited,
while residents evacuated,
and the water broke in.
It didn't know their history,
just that they were in the way.