Introducing a new series of poems by Julian Matthews. Julian is a writer and Pushcart-nominated poet published in The American Journal of Poetry, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Borderless Journal, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Dream Catcher Magazine, Live Encounters Magazine, Lothlorien Poetry Journal and The New Verse News, among others. He is a mixed-race minority from Malaysia and lived in Ipoh for seven years. Currently based in Petaling Jaya, he is a media trainer and consultant for senior management of multinationals on Effective Media Relations, Social Media and Crisis Communications. He was formerly a journalist with The Star and Nikkei Business Publications Inc
Link: https://linktr.ee/julianmatthews
By Julian Matthews
I bought it decades ago as formal wear for functions and night events.
Paired with a black jacket, it didn’t require the constriction of a tie.
I thought the vertical black and white stripes would make me look thinner in old age.
Today I lifted it off the rack with weighted heaviness.
Time’s unforgiving arc eventually bends toward more funerals than weddings.
Amid the pandemic, the informality of zoom funerals didn’t require its service. So it hung
in the wardrobe, patiently waiting, like a mother awaits a wayward son to come home.
Ever ready to clothe you in her warm embrace yet button you up in her grace;
ever willing to shoulder your every despair, yet straighten your collar and tuck in self-control
in your pants; and always filling a pocket of spirituality and gratitude just over your heart.
I check myself in the mirror and under the light, I see that the shirt has faded.
Its midnight matte has given in to ashen grey. At the funeral, I note the traditional black
is no longer a must, these days. Or perhaps some people just didn’t get the memo.
Maybe, I too, should look with renewed eyes at death and blackness as mutually exclusive.
That all these endings can be new beginnings. That I should just stop picking at the stitches
of this grief and not let sadness crease the remaining, fading fabric of our lives.
Or, maybe, I should just go out and buy a new shirt.
First published in Poetry for Mental Health Book Series: Anxiety and Depression, published by Robin Barratt, UK, and available on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FCXQ5K2S
