My Old Black Sport Coat

My Old Black Sport Coat
Although references to the old black wool sport coat I bought for $12.99 at Goodwill seven years ago to wear to a wedding are scattered here and there around the site, I haven’t written a poem about it until now. I still wear the coat for months at a stretch during the colder part of the year. In fact, I do more than wear it. I rely on it. I have only one other sport coat — a pointlessly speckled light-gray affair that I wore only a few times several years ago. A bit on the flimsy side, that one cost $7.99, and it never did fit that well. I don’t remember just why I bought it. Restless, probably. The black one fits perfectly and is quite warm. It was made in Hungary. I love it. It’s a faithful friend. My Old Black Sport Coat Someday I think I’d like to wear it in Ireland, And maybe even be buried in it there. I could fall asleep while leaning on its sturdy Unfaded elbows, surrounded by strangers in a pub, And then simply not wake up — as if I’d lost My train of thought, or managed to forget The most important thing. Perdóneme, What did you say again? Ah. He’s dead. But what a fine sport coat. That same train is calling in the wilderness. Now it’s moving slowly past the docks. Men look up: the beast sniffs along the track, But knows not where to stop. Six years ago, when I helped lay my dear Basque Mother-in-law to rest, I was wearing this coat. Her grave is beside her husband’s In a cemetery adjacent to an onion field. Earlier, in the church, The man who rented her vineyard Looked at me as if I were strange. Jealous of the coat, I thought, Or puzzled by my hair and beard. And now, he is dead. His tractor is calling in the wilderness. Now it’s moving slowly past the docks. Men look up: the beast sniffs along the furrow, But knows not where to stop. I taught three sons how to drive While wearing this old black coat: Country roads, parking lots, residential streets. I taught them how to use their mirrors And to back up along a curb. Hills were easier, they learned, In first or second gear. Frequently, along the way, I remembered When my father had taught me. After our youngest son got his license, I was wearing this coat when the two of us Stopped at a tobacco shop after buying his insurance. I bought a cigar and smoked it in this coat, To celebrate what he’d done, but also in memory Of my old man, Who somehow became lost in the wilderness. Now he’s walking slowly past the docks. Men look up: maybe they know him. But if they did, wouldn’t they call out? When I held my grandson for the first time, I was wearing this coat. Outside, rain. Along a scented, night-black street, I walked away from the hospital in this coat, Pleased and wondering what it meant. You never know who you’ll meet in the wilderness. *November 26, 2007* Note: Poems, Slightly Used, a growing collection of work first published in my blog, Recently Banned Literature, can be found here. POETRY COLLECTIONS IN PRINT Available from Cosmopsis Books of San Francisco *Winter Poems* by William Michaelian ISBN: 978-0-9796599-0-4 US $11.95; $8.95 at Cosmopsis Books 52 pages. 6x9. Paper. Includes one drawing. San Francisco, June 2007 *Signed, numbered & illustrated copies* *Winter Poems* displays the skills and abilities of Mr. Michaelian at their most elemental level, at the bone. Wandering amidst a barren world, a world scraped bare, he plucks the full moon like fruit from the winter sky, goes mad and befriends a pack of hungry wolves, burns his poems to keep warm. He is a flake of snow, a frozen old man, a spider spinning winter webs. Spring is only a vague notion of a waiting vineyard, crocuses, and ten-thousand babies. The author is alone, musing, reflecting, at times participating. But not quite alone, for he brings the lucky reader along. I’ve been there, to this winter world, and I plan to go back. — John Berbrich, Barbaric Yawp *Another Song I Know — Short Poems* by William Michaelian ISBN: 978-0-9796599-1-1 US $13.95; $10.95 at Cosmopsis Books 80 pages. 6x9. Paper. Includes Author’s Note. San Francisco, June 2007 *Signed, numbered & illustrated copies* *Another Song I Know* is a delightful collection of brief, resilient poems. Reading them, one by one by one, is like taking a walk through our common everyday world and suddenly hearing what the poet hears: the leaves, a coffee cup, chairs — and yes, even people, singing their songs of wisdom, sweetness, and light. *— Tom Koontz, Barnwood* poetry magazine**	Also by William Michaelian POETRY Winter Poems ISBN: 978-0-9796599-0-4 52 pages. Paper. —————————— Another Song I Know ISBN: 978-0-9796599-1-1 80 pages. Paper. —————————— Cosmopsis Books San Francisco Signed copies available Main Page Author’s Note Background Notebook A Listening Thing Among the Living No Time to Cut My Hair One Hand Clapping Songs and Letters Collected Poems Early Short Stories Armenian Translations Cosmopsis Print Editions Interviews News and Reviews Highly Recommended Let’s Eat Favorite Books & Authors Useless Information Conversation Flippantly Answered Questions E-mail & Parting Thoughts *Poetry, Notes & Marginalia:* Recently Banned Literature Collected Poems by William Michaelian A Larger Life Monastery of Psalms Revelation Friends (includes French translation) Summer of Dreams Hunger Is It His Coat? The Boy Who Wrote Letters Forty Days, Forty Nights Papa’s Song (clam chowder blues) The Pilgrim’s Way A Christmas Wish The Teacher The Literary Awakening of America The Healer The Enigmatic Child What Happened to God Reading Tristram Shandy A Prefix of Obscure Meaning He Knows My Only Friend The World I Know We Do Not Need a Poem Three Short Poems The More We Are Looking For I Hear the Earth What Will I Give You? Great Minds Think Alike The Age of Us All I Met My Spirit Claim Denied Summer Days Greek Peppers Another Hard Day James Joyce Singing How Many Stones? At the Armenian Home The Peace Talks The Eggs of March Armenian Music If Poems Were Days Once Again I Lied Frogs One Last Thing Everywhere I Go Up Here On the Hill Pumpkins Winter View What December Said to January Winter Poems Spring Haiku How to Write a Poem, In Three Lessons The Walls Have Ears Why I Don’t Buy Grapes To French Vanilla and All the Other Flavors It Was Early Morning Haiku Someone’s Mother Fall Questions The Clerk and the Windmill Roadside Distress, Part 2 Magical Realism (First Prize) Café Poetry Night: Two Poems Short Poem for Spring Short Poem for Summer I Find Him Eating Butterflies For the Sister I Never Had An Absurdist Play The Second Act Essay Of Poets and Other Things
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