Seven suits

Seven tailored suits, matching shoes and socks,
a brace of muted ties with subtle breast pocket
handkerchiefs inscribed, you wouldn’t credit
how badly they governed you in days gone by.

And the shirts, the cuffed and collared shirts
with collars wide and elegant, the colours understated
with a deference to foppish sense that’s better suited
to excuse a crass excess than daily use. Or commonsense.

And you kept them all,
vacuum-packed in plastic sleeves
stored in back of cupboards or on dismal
shelves far out of view to gather timeless dust.

That you never wear them even now and then
must strike a chord – if there’s a chord to resonate
when struck, or bleed a mote of seasoned doubt
or starts a keen debate about the waste of space.

But you are a snake, an old and elegant example
of the code of haute couture who kept the skins he
shuffled off across the years and never grew beyond
the loss, kept them all to long endure.

It matters not they’d never fit today, you might lose
some weight, a chance of fate, the fashion’s never dead
and what a hit you’d surely make in matching shoes
and shirt and tie immaculate with tailored suit.

It won’t occur, the time is passed as has the place
to wear these clothes, it would be better to dispose
of them in decent taste than keep them all, hope
they’ll find a better home at Saint Vincent de Paul.
© I.D. Carswell