Pilling

It came from the wash as a tangled gray bird,

the saddest disaster that I’ve ever heard.

A five-dollar t-shirt of loosely spun thread,

now a wet knot that is better off dead.

I pick at the fuzz with a thumb and a nail,

a small-scale attempt at a garment-based jail.

White fibers are stuck in the ridges of skin,

where the cheapness of cotton has finally set in.