Long before you became, you already were,
It didn’t matter what you wore.
Yet the queer salesman in a Thom McAn’s
knelt and held your heel
like you were just any girl in the world
when he caught you
in the wrong aisle. You weren’t even seven,
your feet still small, ballet pumps
at odds with your khakis
and Y chromosome, like mixing linens
and wool a verse below not letting an ox
and ass plow together. Yet he slipped
a pink shoe on, then the other, made you
understand the difference
between pity and reverence,
how only the last one fit as you stood
and gloriously crossed the floor.