any white shirt would do
for a black and white stageplay
as long as I got to recite
my lines wearing my old
soft black cowboy hat
crown-pinched and brim-rolled
like pages of scripts my gray
fingers would worry
again and again line-by-line
word-for-word all to memorize
life in the hope that some
slightest applause
might redeem the dull effort
(originally posted December 2013)