What Shall I Wear
By David Michael Jackson
I checked my closet today
Will I wear my feelings on my sleeve
Will it be my waistcoat of sadness
with the hopeless cape of yesterday
I would wear instead a shirt of love
with a coat of pure kindness
and shoes of a good journey
and gloves of giving
I look into a grey sky
and ask for help
with my wardrobe
This corn is just corn
and the words are just words
sitting on a page like a barn in a field
and behind the barn, a boy
among the chickens
with a stick for gathering the cows
on a path worn by cows walking in a line.
Heaa up there
He waves the stick.
The sun shines among shadows.
The wind blows.
The birds don’t rustle
because they’ve seen this painting.
The corn is just corn
and the words are just words
sitting on a page like the plow
being pulled pulled by the mule.
Gee
Haw
Whoa
Come up there.
The news hit hard again
as he shuffled in the line and
searched his pockets
for tickets, his mind for answers.
“They cannot be so stupid as to return
to those days”
His face grew redder and redder,
His hair started to smoke.
The smoke rose into the grey sky.
Suddenly his entire head burst into flames.
He ran down the street, No
No
No”