Your Feet by Pablo Neruda

~

When I cannot look at your face 


I look at your feet. 


Your feet of arched bone, 


your hard little feet. 


I know that they support you, 


and that your sweet weight rises upon them. 


Your waist and your breasts, 


the doubled purple 
of your nipples, 


the sockets of your eyes 


that have just flown away, 


your wide fruit mouth, 


your red tresses, 


my little tower. 


But I love your feet 
only because they walked 


upon the earth and upon 


the wind and upon the waters, 


until they found me.

~

The most romantic thing he ever did was put my socks back on after.

I remember how he started:

You looked up at me.

You looked up at me, from the base of me (this perspective is important). From the base of me you looked up and into me and (from this perspective alone)

You softened.

You place one hand on my sock.

I look down at my sock.

I look down at you, (but not on you, this perspective is important) and I do not smile because wait, see,

These socks are not socks not the soft socks I might wear if I knew this was going to happen. These are not my cashmere socks (if I had cashmere socks), these are the lost socks, the miss-matched souls with lint balls and see-through bottoms. The ones with worn elastic at the ankles. The themed ones. Poor quality, Christmas or something. No,

These are not my cashmere socks.

You soften,

My socks soften.

You touched my socks like cashmere socks and

Everything from that moment softened.

I remember how you pulled them, no

Slid them no,

Guided them.

You unroll the ankle part first.

Like a small small cinnamon roll; (a French kind, in a corner delicatessen)

Un, deux, trois,

Small delicate rolls to reveal my heal (rough, chapped, now somehow like butter)

And so, you are ready to slide them off.

You pause first.

You look up at me (and into me) and without words or symbols or shapes you ask permission.

I look down at you (and into you) and without words or symbols or shapes I give you permission.

And so, you are ready to slide them off.

And although there were two,

You do this with the care and the precision,

Like there was only one.

And then there were 10. And

You touch each one.

You pull and you stretch each one. You see each one. You feel each one. The baby one, that is my Mother. The second one, that is my father. And when you finish each small one stretched and open, ready and willing.

Ten small parts of me opened to you, by you. Now all parts of me opened to you, by you, And and and

And even though you touched my feet, I feel my fingers and my heart and my spine, (and in particular the orange arch in my low back) and all the water in the bowl of my pelvis runneth o’er. Water, orange swirling water pools into the bones of my thighs and funnels back down into you I know you can feel it yes you look at me I know you can feel it yes yes yes.

You reach for my sock.

You reach for my sock and I am struck:

You grant me permission to come back home.

You reach for my sad sad Christmas sock.

You slide it onto my foot and

I am home.

Both socks, both feet.

Just like we started.

You look up at me.

You look up at me, from the base of me (this perspective is important). And from the

base of me, you soften to me. And the end doesn’t matter because (you’re at the very base of me) and you’re actually already there.

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Editor: Rachel Nussbaum

Photo: elephant archives