Oda a los calcetines

Ode to a pair of socks

Maru Mori brought me a pair of socks
that she knit with her shepherd's hands.
Two socks as soft as rabbit fur.
I thrust my feet inside them
as if they were two little boxes
knit from threads of sunset
and sheepskin.

My feet were two woolen fish in those outrageous socks,
two gangly, navy-blue sharks
impaled on a golden thread,
two giant blackbirds, two cannons:
thus were my feet honored
by those heavenly socks.
They were so beautiful
I found my feet
unlovable
for the very first time, like two crusty old
firemen, firemen
unworthy of that embroidered fire,
those incandescent socks.

Nevertheless
I fought the sharp temptation
to put them away
the way schoolboys put fireflies in a bottle,
the way scholars hoard holy writ.
I fought the mad urge
to lock them in a golden cage
and feed them birdseed
and morsels of pink melon
every day.
Like jungle explorers who deliver a young deer
of the rarest species to the roasting spit
then wolf it down in shame,
I stretched my feet forward
and pulled on those gorgeous socks,
and over them my shoes.

So this is
the moral of my ode:
beauty is beauty twice over
and good things are doubly good
when you're talking about
a pair of wool socks
in the dead of winter.