Things wear out. Like this shirt
They gave me, a t-shirt emblazoned
With the school’s full name and colors.
How many more washings, I wonder,
Can it withstand before it’s threadbare?
Such fading is a nothing-at-all-to-be wondered at.
Not like the jolting reverie
Of happiness I always felt
While teaching history there.
Not like what it all came down to,
The dread of the matter,
That a simple, washed-out shirt
Could be an all-that’s-left
Of an incomparable school.
