Shirt

Are you wearing a new shirt?

Yes I am. I bought it off the rack
In the tranquility of mid-afternoon.

What was it about the shirt you liked?

The color did not shout,
The fabric was soft and yielding,
No design element had run amok

Upon its simple surface.

Can you tell us more?

I had the sense the shirt would not leave me lonely
But stand with me through my days.
I had the sense it had been quietly waiting
For the store to clear
So it could make its presence felt.

Where are you in your life that you can speak so
of a shirt?

I am in the place of joyful solitude
And daily walk within a concrete pasture.
I am with brothers and sisters who know me not
And yet are one with me as I am with them.
I am with the jaundiced eye and the lecher’s tongue
And the scrofulous seedlings in my own thought patterns.
I am here in New York City, where I was born to live and die.

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