At the sign of the black flip-flop
crossed off in red, by the door
of the Ganesh temple, you are obliged
to take off your shoes, and this you do.
In the face of all the silent watchers
on the steps, you bend, struggle
to undo the laces and come up pink,
not, as a stranger might think,
out of embarrassment. No, you point
at your foot in its black sock,
and there, escaping it,
the pale slug of your naked toe.
You laugh because you know,
as all the watchers do,
that this is the way of things.
A sock inside a shoe is deemed
immaculate. A sock exposed
to public view, especially on its way
to god, will grow a hole.
Even the master of symmetry knew
this to be true. When Gabriel
and the dove fly in, the fabric of the day
wears thin and frays
Light folds itself over a boy’s head
and he is shirtless, shivering,
but believes the Baptist will turn
from the main event before too long
to tend to him. You
make a kind of offering
of frailty, an opening for the world
to show its grace
and as you point, the watchers,
children, street-dogs, bottom-scratchers
become your family. You
are a foreigner nowhere.
On imperfect feet, you go in to meet the gods,
the open-armed, the many-eyed,
the asymmetric, belly-shaking gods.