Shirt Kill

There was a man’s shirt
in the road today,
the highway.
I don’t even want to think
about how it got there,
but I do.
After all, it’s still white,
and any accidents involving
dry cleaning, laundry baskets
or careless packing
seem as unlikely as there
being a tie on that shirt.
So I imagine it was ripped off
in hot-fingered haste
during a passion-pumped drive
…or flung away in a fury
because someone miscalculated
the amount of emotion in a
conversation that suddenly
needed physical punctuation.
It’s exciting when fingers get hot
and hurried and yes even when
punctuation gets physical,
but let’s face it,
it can be deadly
for shirts.