Scuffed
Sometimes my soul
feels as worn and scuffed as my old boots.
There are days
I feel every scar cut into the leather
every broken stitch
in the quarters and crown,
and the uneven wear of the cowboy heels
has changed my gait
with an inward bent on each one.
I no longer step from the stirrup
in full stride
but move with a bowlegged amble,
kicking off the cowshit
on an uphill path
past the gates of autumn and
into winter’s corral.
Ron Wallace
Ron Wallace is an Oklahoma native and currently an adjunct instructor of Literature and Composition at Southeastern Oklahoma State University, in Durant, Oklahoma. He is the author of twelve books of poetry, five of which have been finalists in the Oklahoma Book Awards with “Renegade and Other Poems” winning the 2018 Award. Wallace has been a multiple “Pushcart Prize” nominee and has recently been published in “Oklahoma Today”, “Dos Gatos”, “Emerge Magazine”, and a number of other magazines and journals. Wallace has also written his first novel A Secret Lies in New Orleans which was a finalist in fiction in the 2022 Oklahoma Book Awards.