This Old Coat

by Jon Escher

I wandered through a Salvation Army store

and came to the rack of winter coats and jackets

paused to consider

that strangers lived and may have died in these.

I remember that the buttons were big

and the collars were meant to be raised

against cold New England winds

that the pockets were deep, built to envelope.

I picked out something heavy brown stiff

and with it (I imagined) the story of a man

who walked in woods amid snow

and drew his hand over the rough bark of trees.

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Jon Escher's poems have appeared in The Frost Meadow Review and the Clayjar Review, and have been short-listed for the Fish Publishing International Poetry Prize. His poems have been featured on New Hampshire Public Radio's "All Things Considered." Jon lives and works on a farm in New Hampshire.