Oh, Little Shirt, the decision to keep you
was not made immediately.
I have to confess, at first I looked for a replacement.
A new thing, exactly like you.

But then I began to consider first,
That no one exists exactly like you
Zara doesn’t make you anymore
Only one collection,
Made in Portugal,
Of unknown exact fabric, but certainly some cotton
The tag is too worn to know,
And I never knew you new.

I found you in Iowa City,
At a Goodwill
Three dollars and a rectification —
Your bright birds and leaves,
Your dragonfruits
Could solve the problem presented by a recent girlfriend:
You wear way too much black.

So you came home with me,
Resplendent in colour.
I washed you with a pair of crimson pants once and most of the white of you turned rosy pink.

I decided this was appropriate and kept you then.

But a hole on the shoulder!
Presented a new problem.
Should I get rid of you?
By this time I had worn you so many years
I was attached.
The girlfriend was gone, but my parrot shirt was a staple, fit perfectly, comfortably stretched out where it needs to be, the exact level of Crop Tee.

So I got out my sewing kit,
chose the colour to sew you together:
Red, so the mending would be visible,
And then I mended you,
Very badly some might say,
I’ve never been domestic,
But where there was a hole there are now uneven stitches, winking a sweet red wink, as if to remind me that mending is almost always better than giving up.