Introduction by Ted Kooser: The next time you open your closet, this poem will give you reason to pay a little more attention to what's hanging inside. Gary Whited is from Massachusetts and his most recent book is Having Listened, (Homebound Publications, 2013).

My Blue Shirt

hangs in the closet

of this small room, collar open,

sleeves empty, tail wrinkled.

Nothing fills the shirt but air

and my faint scent. It waits,

all seven buttons undone,

button holes slack,

the soft fabric with its square white pattern,

all of it waiting for a body.

It would take any body, though it knows,

in its shirt way of knowing, only mine

has my shape in its wrinkles,

my bend in the elbows.

Outside this room birds hunt for food,

young leaves drink in morning sunlight,

people pass on their way to breakfast.

Yet here, in this closet,

the blue shirt needs nothing,

expects nothing, knows only its shirt knowledge,

that I am now learning—

how to be private and patient,

how to be unbuttoned,

how to carry the scent of what has worn me,

and to know myself by the wrinkles.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2013 by Gary Whited, “My Blue Shirt,” from Having Listened, (Homebound Publications, 2013). Poem reprinted by permission of Gary Whited and the publisher. Introduction copyright ©2017 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.