For everything you are suspicious of

Take off your shoes
at the door; socks
may be kept on.

Eat with your right
hand, clean yourself
with the left.

One nostril may be
pinched shut to guide
the breath out the other.

Imagine a sphere of light
traveling up from the soles
of your feet to the crown

of your head. What gives you
a raft of tribulations
may give you some more.

Before you step off
an edge, let birds fix
a string to your wrist.

Before you dig for stones
of forgiveness, let the rain
show you what is clean.

One Reply to “For everything you are suspicious of”

  1. This is a perfect coda to the Chinese martial arts film I just finished watching on Netflix.(I’m sure you didn’t have that in mind when you wrote it—just an example of the sort of thing a reader might bring to a poem!)

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