Old pants,
your knees are frayed
from repeatedly
allowing my body
down kneeling
to pick up a coin
or comfort a child
or occasionally pray.
You embarrass my wife
when I wear you in places
where people never grow old
and things never wear out.
I should take you to the curb
or perhaps give you to a man
who cannot afford new pants.
He needs you more than I,
but does not know you,
he would not know your longsuffering
as an emblem of his own.
He could not love you as I love you,
entering you one leg at a time
all these consequential years
What have you ever done to me
but go where I go and grow old on my body
as my body grows old within your folds.
I flare when your zipper flap won’t flatten,
thus exposing your meshed metallic teeth.
I curse you when my key drops through
the hole that lives in your right pocket.
It was I who poked the hole with a small tool
that should not have been there.
I am sorry for the hole and the anger.
When I wear you in winter
I feel like the man I have become,
a bit worn myself but comfortable with age,
pleased with the succession of days
that have been the years of my life
and fifteen years of yours.
2013