JEANS ALTERATION

The shops and markets have flung open their doors
To alter everything sit here these thousands of tailors

Come bring your jeans that are too long, too short, too broad
Blue jeans that seem brown- or white- or black-skinned
Come, the poor, the hungry, the unemployed
The rich, the high and mighty, the high lifers
To alter everything sit here these thousands of tailors

The tailors seem familiar, like your uncles, your neighbours
They keep altering your life till you grow old
Gandhi in India and Jesus abroad
Are experts at altering the length, the inseam, the pocket, the zipper

Caste, language, creed and trade
To alter them all sit here these thousands of tailors

Tailors are teachers and tailors are gods
All who visit are altered, none are spared
No other god like them
‘Welcome, welcome’ resound the markets
To alter everything sit here these thousands of tailors

Physics politics aesthetics medicine Mumbai
Olympics internet NY times IBM E-com
Audiometrician beautician linguistician
Nationhood parenthood sainthood selfhood
Technocracy pornocracy snobocracy
Dancedom filmdom fandom dolldom
Acrobatics biomathematics atmospherics avionics
Zillions gazillions alteration experts sit here here, my friends.

JEANS ALTERATION