it depends

she asked me about toes.
if i found them disgusting,
something to hide
perpetually wrapped in socks
far from prying eyes.
or if it might be possible
to find beauty
in a naked foot,
stripped of all disguise.

it depends, i said,
on a number of factors.
when i was younger
i used to look at shoes
because you can tell a lot
about someone
from what they choose to wear.
that didn’t answer
her question directly,
of course,
so i talked about hygiene
and aesthetic qualities
like line and shape and form.
beauty in the eye
of any beholder,
to be sure,
and yet —

some seem to see
a bit more sensitively,
i suppose, peering beneath
the surface of things
to find what
truly matters.
i don’t know if my answer
suited her tastes
but she smiled
and walked away,
which left me wondering
why she bothered
to ask me
at all.