Five Flannel Shirts

Guests at the party these old shirts

hang in my cedar wardrobe waiting

to be selected, waiting

for me to make light chat

between sips of white wine and bites

of stuffed mushrooms.

 

These shirts are strangers to partying

being pedestrian objects more utilitarian

than a party guest would ever consider being.

Slightly rumpled, shrunk

from the mistake of hot water in the washer

the grey and brown plaid looks forlorn, says

“I need to be worn soon or all the life will slip out of me!”

Says, “The sweatshop seamstress sewed her dreams

into me stitch by stitch and the professor preferred me

above all others in the thrift shop.”

On days my life feels as forlorn

as this grey-brown flannel shirt

this shirt keeps me warm, reminds

me of the balm of admiration,

the nectar of love once bestowed.

 

The tan and maroon shirts are thicker flannel.

Thick like the suffocating righteousness

of my father who owned them.

My mood must be strong, near invulnerable,

to wear these shirts.  I fear his power,

fear it will reach beyond his watery grave

fear that he will discover me driving his car,

living in his mother's house.

I, his ungrateful adopted daughter,

his carefully considered choice

at the green-walled Jacksonville orphanage, 1948.

He waited to hear me say, “I love you.”  He never realized

his convictions became the demon that rose up each night

as I vomited the day's tension down the toilet.

Yes sir, no sir.

Yes, captain, commander, daddy, sir.

They thought it funny my blurting out

all those methods of address at once--

covering all bases and only eight years old.

I wear those thick shirts when cold overcomes fear.

When necessity grows beyond memory

and the present is far more important than the past.

Then those thick flannel shirts are just shirts,

handy to keep me warm on a cold New England day.

On the days I cannot bear

to forget the jazz musician

who slipped out of life as I sang softly into his ear

I select the green or blue checked flannel.

The aura of safety,

the promise of care sunk into those fibers

a promise far better

than banking money for the rainy day.

I gently slip one off its hanger, investing

it around myself.  Sometimes

days pass before I safely stow it back on its hanger.

A husband he was not until his obituary named me wife.

My mother mused " an instant son-in-law" she never knew.

 

Two flannel shirts,

a wool baseball cap still pungent with his smell,

the three hole punch,

and his drum used as a coffee table

left by the guy who thought life was a gas.

A guy who only conceded to death

as I sang Christmas carols and spirituals in his ear

just five days before the Nativity.

 

Peppermint candy canes in a mason jar

wait for the yearly ritual

of the wreath cast off to sea each December

to mark his passing.

Not until year three did I gather up the boughs,

tie the candy to their green pungency,

and saying "sweets to the sweet",

cast them off at Brenton's Point.

The ocean, Newport, candy, Christmas, me.

The man with the golden voice loved them all.

          Sugar Hill, NH, July 2000

          Portsmouth, RI  January 2010

 

 

 

~Return To "Work in Progress"