Green Suit Poem by Allan Thorne

I left town
Five days after
I turned eighteen
On a grey hound bus
In a cheap green suit
That announced to the world
That I was a hick.

But what did I know of fashion
A blue collar boy
Raised in a dieing
Industrial town.

My mother
Bought it for me
With her love,
And money
She didn’t have.
So her son would look good.

But what did she know of fashion
Hard scrabble
Farm girl that she was.

And so I went
Off into the world
In a cheap green suit.

Because I didn’t
Want to be the
“Man” of my mother’s house
Because I wanted a life
Of my own.