At The Cobbler's Poem by Ruth Fogelman

At a tiny stall in an Old City alley,
your feet resting on the pedal of your sewing machine,
you sit, day after day, surrounded by sneakers, boots,
sandals, suit jackets and jeans.

Today, an empty white tea-cup
with blue IDF emblem stands near your feet
and a leather handbag dangles from a cardboard box
balanced atop another on a shelf above your head.

Olive green cloth on knees, open can of glue in hand,
you stick a patch of leather inside my shoe.
With thick needle between black-tipped fingers
you stitch it fast.

But more than my shoe connects us:
year after year I walk the cobbled path
past your stall, in the City that is our home,
and every day I greet you, "Peace be with you, Abu Izzam."