More Than Covers, More Than Men Poem by Jesse Ellsbury

A Christmas party,
a discarded coat,
shunned from the shoulders of its freezing host
and amidst the cheers and each kiss,
it’s thrown into the spare bedroom
onto the pile of rejects.

The tweed jacket with the suede elbows
is lecturing on manners,
telling tales of how Einstein
always put coats on hangers,
the leather jacket’s a bit more vocal
it knew James Dean
and just how social
the king of cool could be,

“Smells like your body dumped egg nog on you, ”
“Well, I’m from Walmart, what else can you do? ”
And other garment pleasantries,
from types of knit to that fur coat’s weave.

Up above, the man awkwardly stands,
trying to judge when he will and can
come in with an anecdote,
pipe in with some witty joke,
and would it go over as well
as the tale told by that handsome guy
in his suede jacket and ironed tie,
who came in right after that girl whose eye
he thought
he caught,
maybe he was wrong
after all.

The suede jacket was stand-offish,
its metal zipper straight from the office
but the delicate coat with the scarf
was eager to recount
her days with the shoulders she adorned
and there was no sense of disdain or scorn
in the tone of diversity, in the shared hope
caused by being thrown together.

“The weather…
hasn’t it been nice?
I just meant to say that I thought that we might
want to grab a drink after this.”
“Oh my god, did you hear that Jim
asked Courtney out? ”
“What’d she say? ”
“She said sure, but just for the wine,
she doesn’t care about him like that at this time”
and all the other careless talk,
gossip and lies about company stock.

The coats,
worn and shorn
but no longer forlorn,
have no contradiction
and the only sense of friction
is in being packed like sardines,
but perfume keeps it serene,
the only noise is a rustle
not the hustle and bustle
of those you don’t know,
who’s under the mistletoe?
What have they heard,
from whose perspective or word
and what do they think of me?

After the candles die down
and the music has melted through the rafters
into the spare bedroom,
the coats are neglected but content
in their inclusive non-event
while the owners tromp downstairs,
half of them falling while the other half stares
to see if they were really injured,
or would they be deprived of another rumor
to start
broken hearts,
there are none among the overcoats
who don’t need doubting or hope
they just lie
on one another,
neighbors
more than covers
more than men.