They sliced the soles of his feet
open, lengthwise then crosswise
to see if there was some trick,
an explanation
for the man who could fly,
the man who saw the godhead
with his naked eye.
They pinned the flaps of skin
open like wings
and searched inside the gristle
for a machine,
a motor and spring, the wheel
inside the bone, the reason
why.
He must have been playing
a trick on them all this time,
the wool pulled tight
over the collective cyclopic eye,
flashbulb-bright—
he must have, he must have
lied. But the foot was that
of a normal man
after all, after all that
and they sewed his foot together again.