old age and rare devotion

while slipping into teeshirts

screened with messages

there was never a sense of mediocrity.

the (messages were the medium)

front: “Champagne don’t make me crazy

back:  "Cocaine don’t make me lazy”

“Write-in Eldridge Cleaver for president”

“Unite Ireland!”

and so on.

with an approaching birthday many years ago,

my father, the liquor salesman on the road,

sent me a teeshirt 2 times my size with a message

because he knew “I liked that sort of thing.”  It read:

“Kiss Me I'm Italian” and on the back,

voluptuous, cadmium red female lips.

now long gone.

so stupid. so typically naive. so fundamentally department store.

try as I have over the years, I can't find another one.