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