The Importance Of Liberated Toes Poem by Alexandre Nodopaka

We see one and not the other
at the two main stages of our lives.
Once at birth when we tiptoe

towards the entrance or is it the exit.
The second time at death when we enter
another entrance or is it also an exit.

Before I get carried away explaining
the differences between arrivals
and departures let me stay for a while

on the subject by mentioning
that the action of having swaddled me
in a towel

has traumatized me all lifelong.
I never could sleep under tucked sheets
unless I could wiggle my toes

freely outside the sheets.
After I die they better not swaddle me
when setting me on the pyre.