Doug Anderson: The Overcoat

I carried that coat until the end,
pockets stuffed with all
I could not throw away:
an open knife that cut my hand
when I reached in for it,
a snake that bit me,
a list of all the wrongs
she’d done me and another,
secreted in the lining,
of all the harm I’d caused
in my bumbling spirit-lurch
through life, breaking
the sacred vessels everywhere.
My knees hurt from the weight,
and at each border crossing
I had to empty my pockets
and lay all on the table
to be sniffed and sorted
by strangers with faces
of concrete, and of course
I had to see it all again
in the cruel neon and be crushed.
When I reached the final border,
on the other side of which
I could see, as through a frosted window
the bright fall colors and feel the cello,
I was happy to let it slide off my shoulders.
And then they began to peel away my mask
and a red-faced infant screamed itself alive.
“You are you again,” someone said,
as I stepped over, naked, into whatever’s next.

—

copyright 2015 Doug Anderson