T-Shirt by Jane M. Engleman

Well, I’m broken in. What did the breaking

make me? What did the scavenger

bring me in his beak, tissue of sores in shreds

along the hot sidewalk?

What good did crying do me… …til I was dirt

and pastel rings around a puddle?

There is no silver lining. There is no well.

It seemed all eyes were on me,

these veins of infection; It seemed everyone

was talking all at once. And it seemed

they were always walking away;

colliding, backing off, coming at me

and walking away.

It seems I dreamed in a grey block cube.

And what did I get? I stayed alive.

And what did I get? I survived a holocaust

and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt…

…incidentally, and,

I got my life back, and it has been

the most exquisitely interesting life.

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