They’re sturdy, this pair of pattens, defiant
in their own shadow on a bench. Thick uppers

look unyielding yet feet have sculpted them
to plantar arch, twisted toe and bunion.

A single block made sole and heel: prow-lift fore,
raised platform aft. No sign of studs or pins –

a rim of hidden nails must fasten hide to wood.
Age has worn both materials to drab,

reproduced in chisel-stripes blunt with haste
or passion. These sabots are seasoned but

not trodden down; fissured where weather’s
bled the skin. Perhaps the cracks store

market dregs or midden ooze that spice
the smell of seasoned saddlery.

Do they dance, nights, to a secret orchestra
of Catherine-wheeling stars?

Maybe they’d fit me. When I slide them on
I’ll find them ghostly warm, but alien.