letter to my blue jeans
dear blue jeans,
let me explain.
i know this time has been difficult for you—
you, punctual and monotoned,
ten years with a dusty crooked-smile contractor
who wore you like the period
at the end of the world’s most obvious sentence.
i hope it wasn’t death that separated the two of you
from your comfortable romance.
no, no, probably the wife,
passive-aggressively clearing out the old,
hoping he will notice a difference
inside that tired closet.
dearest levis,
you were so neatly folded,
not too faded, straight and tucked behind a bible,
perhaps absorbing the sobs of the organ pipes
as they shook the dust-mites off of
your crisscrossed legs.
then, perhaps a little lonely,
you were ferried to the shop
between the krystal’s
and ralph’s auto body,
and you were hung with care,
expectant but straight-faced,
in the security that you would once again
be brought into a home of mundane warmth.
i am so sorry.
instead, it was i that ripped
you from your hanger,
paying the good woman up front a grimy dollar
and stealing you away,
researching the most meticulous ways
to tear you apart
at the stoplights
in the rain.
for fashion, for indifference,
for somethin new.
you are paralyzed, horrified,
as i gut you with a boxcutter
making you anew,
making you weep white threads
from many gaping eyes
staring into my legs, letting the chills in
dear blue jeans,
now i wear you like a question mark,
with my hips hugged tight
and my knees smiling through your skeleton.
i wear you like ellipsis
perhaps a suggestion that shouldn’t be taken too seriously…
love and best wishes,
the owner