American Life in Poetry

Perhaps you’ve experienced the sudden, unsettling intimacy of putting on somebody else’s jacket and finding a wad of tissue in the pocket. Here’s a fine poem by Debra Nystrom, raised in South Dakota and now teaching in Virginia.

Little Parka

Dream of Mom’s red parka gone —

someone stole it right out of the closet

of the burned-down house — what

good could it do anybody else, broken

zipper that always got caught,

she’d jimmy it loose, just part

of putting it on — and she was so tiny,

the arms too short even for me,

too-tiny gloves in the pockets, thumbs

stubby, practically useless to anyone

but her — they deserve it if they shove in

a hand, find the tissue she used and then

left there who knows which cold day,

what she needed it for, or why.