Googling "white shirt" and "poem" came up with some interesting things. Poems with that title, a whole book with that as title (by Laurie MacFayden), and lots of self-published verse.
By far the most moving, beautiful, startling, confusing, and fine is the poem, by June Jordan, called "It's Hard to Keep a Clean Shirt Clean" published on line at The Poetry Foundation, the beginning of which is this:
It’s a sunlit morning
with jasmine blooming
easily
and a drove of robin redbreasts
diving into the ivy covering
a backyard fencewhat used to be
or doves shoving aside
the birch tree leaves
when
a young man walks among
the flowers
to my doorway
where he knocks
then stands still
brilliant in a clean white shirt
He lifts a soft fist
to that door
and knocks again
He’s come to say this
was or that
was
not
and what’s
anyone of us to do
about what’s done
what’s past
but prickling salt to sting
our eyes
What’s anyone of us to do
about what’s done
I tried to find a photo of a man in a white shirt, that represented the solemnity and joy of this poem, the grief and softness, but no luck. Too much pornography on the internet, women dressed in men's miliatry whites, nurses popping out of their hooker dresses.
I was resolved to find something beautiful, and switched the search to paintings. Lucky me, I found this astonishing self-portrait, appropriately titled "Man in a White Shirt" by Lucian Freud. White, gold, black, soft and harsh together. Like my hands after a day of trying to get those perspiration stains out of my own laundry.
