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Threadbare
- 1. Threadbare is a poverty,a skin of cloth stretched thin penetrated by light and air both of which say that this old shirt should tatter itself, go back to beginnings. Fly away, unravel, become a rag, leave home. Instead I still picture it draping your bones, only worn to dinners out, piano concerts, pressed. Where did the starch of it go, the beginning, that fine crisp white? Washed more times than a life, it hovered on your frame, fluttered on your arms a flag, a cloud going off somewhere, a bird who flew, but never surrendered. It could fly forever, this dignity. -originally published in The Passager Journal, 2013.