Boxer Shorts

/ Issue 11.1 /

My boxer shorts were made in Vietnam,
and there they are, at Walmart, on the shelf,
but from what hands? A woman’s or a man’s?
Or was a child impelled to work? My self
I sing. I do not have the luxury
of time to think about the ones who make
the clothes I wear. They do it overseas.
Presumably they’re paid and get their take.
In Southeast Asia, labor costs are low
for Hanes, the GAP, and even L.L. Bean.
It’s what we know, and all we need to know.
My shorts won’t creep and have a double seam.
If I don’t like what’s in my Value Pack,
well, I can go and get my money back.

John Foy

John Foy

John Foy’s third book of poems, No One Leaves the World Unhurt, won the 2020 Donald Justice Poetry Prize and was published in 2021 by Autumn House Press. His second book, Night Vision, won the New Criterion Poetry Prize and was published by St. Augustine’s Press in 2016. It was also a finalist for the 2018 Poets’ Prize. His poems have been included in the Swallow Anthology of New American Poets, The Raintown Review Anthology, and Rabbit Ears, an anthology of poems about TV, and they have appeared widely in journals and online. He lives and works in New York.
John Foy

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Author: John Foy

John Foy’s third book of poems, No One Leaves the World Unhurt, won the 2020 Donald Justice Poetry Prize and was published in 2021 by Autumn House Press. His second book, Night Vision, won the New Criterion Poetry Prize and was published by St. Augustine’s Press in 2016. It was also a finalist for the 2018 Poets’ Prize. His poems have been included in the Swallow Anthology of New American Poets, The Raintown Review Anthology, and Rabbit Ears, an anthology of poems about TV, and they have appeared widely in journals and online. He lives and works in New York.