rag bag

I stuffed an olive green sack
with a slough of outgrown clothes;
skins, selves;

There is no place in my life for padded
shoulders, for anklefreeze

jeans. No room for rose
transparencies, nor pills
on bitter wool.

Farewell to such textile
relics, they're
no longer tied to me.

I bundled them all in a sack.
A fat benevolent bag
bound for the rag man.

All garments
too big too small itchy
stretched not suitable
stained too out of date
too earnest too dishonest
too short too cheap too
ugly too worn:
all gone.

I gave up a tutu or two,
to the indiscriminate gut
of the rag bag.

I needed the space.
I faced the fact
that I'm too old now
for a hello
kitty t-shirt.

Immaterial
human sacrifices
that will cease to matter,
in a minute.

I will never wear my wedding dress again.
It was never white to begin with
and its use-by date
is long exceeded.

There are wearable gifts
from mother in the bag
that I didn't wear, once.

My wardrobe parades a clash
of nude hangers.
I am tempted to talk of ghosts,

but the space I created
is free and unhaunted,
which is where I want to be,
naked, or clothed like me.