Blue.
This tends to be the color of America’s favorite pants.
They’re long, and sturdy, and Blue.
Some are cropped short,
Sewn into skirts,
Worn as jackets,
Or worn for exactly what they were meant.
Pants.

Thirty years ago, a boy walked into a store,
Twelve years old, and clueless to the real world.
Short and skinny, he fell behind a woman, a few feet back.
She was tall and slender, and her hips swayed.
The boy’s eyes focused onto one point,
The Blue pockets of her pants indenting into his mind.
She was wearing jeans.
The jeans hugged her, and he liked that.
Thirty years later, and that boy is full grown.
He smiles at his girlfriend as she twirls in front of the full-length mirror.
A/X, the Buckle, Hollister, Express.
He loves them all, those jeans, for the designs on the back pockets,
And the way that they hug his girlfriend’s curves.
Blue.

Twenty years ago, a pregnant lady walked the beach.
She tripped over something stuck in the sand.
Rubbed it with her big, bare toe.
Rough, and sturdy,
And Blue.
She shakes the sand off, holding the soggy material up to the light.
They’re short, cut-off.
Too small for her.
She folds them up and sticks them into her beach bag.
Twenty years later, she smiles at her daughter as she twirls.
Her daughter’s wearing a pair of old, worn shorts.
The jeans have holes in them from age.
They’re still just as Blue as when they were discovered.

It’s present-day, and a girl flips through a rack.
The tags are labeled with the name of the store.
Wal-Mart.
The back pockets are bright and plain.
And Blue.