threadbare

my dad is the other side 
of a loom. he wears shirts until
they are windows. holes that stretch 
beneath the arms. i have boarded up
whole bodies. i have burned 
the evidence. my father still wears
shirts i gave him when i was a teenager.
i used to get him one every christmas.
a penguin. nirvana. a caged rat
after the smashing pumpkins song.
i am trying to follow in his tradition
of holding my body like a portal 
to the next world. my father keeps
few objects. a book spatchcocked 
at the end of the bed. a pair of shoes 
with the soles worn to the asphalt.
once when he was in the shower
i found a shirt balled up on the ground.
i had come home in the early pandemic
when i still believed a rebirth was coming.
i picked the shirt up. it was still warm.
the shirt, once coarse, was softened by time.
his flesh moving across the fabric.
he brings a new meaning to the phrase
"breaking in." i put my hand on one side
& held the shirt up to the hall light.
saw my hand. heard the shower shut off
& dropped the shirt back onto the ground.
i have a shirt i have had since i was nineteen.
to only myself i call it my "father" shirt. 
i sleep in it. let my body weather the threads.
he seldom retires a shirt even when 
they're threadbare. i imagine a burial 
for one of the older shirts. he would 
never allow it. instead, the shirt became
workshop rags. footprints in the sawdust. 
the door to the basement cracked so that
in the living room we can hear him work.