Clothes (Monday Poem)

by Jean Little


I like new clothes.
They seem brighter, smoother, shinier.
I move carefully in them.
I remember to hang them up.
I feel taller in them -- and prettier --
And I don't climb over barbed-wire fences.

I like old clothes too.
I don't think about them much.
They are part of me,
Going where I go, doing whatever I feel like doing.
They are less bother and more comfortable.
They don't expect me to be so tall;
They know my size exactly.

You know, it's a funny thing . . .
Friends are like clothes.


from Hey World, Here I Am! by Jean Little, 1986, HarperCollins