Peacoat Poem by Jaye Renke Vogts

We walked the communist row blocks of Prague
It was your request
While I had visions of Kafka and the Charles Bridge
Behind our puffs of breath
We said nothing
We instead listened
As our walkmans unwound The Shins and Ellington
Hours we plodded
Cold and crisp as a sheet snap
I never noticed
Trailing you
As I had always done
All the way from the Zocalo
I stayed warm

We were not the usual type of girls
We forged the army canvas on our backs
In place of the bag in our hands
I remember it being your idea
To blow cloves
Through our nostrils
To sip poetry as florentines
To wardrobe ourselves at surplus
Though my Mother cried
I never noticed
Something had attached to me
Only the buttons would be lost
As life went along
I stayed warm

That day
When the serpent came
To collect
What I hadn't been able to pay
I popped my collar against October
And rushed to watch you die
But you had gone
Before I fell to my knees
Extended family surrounded
As I slid the peach of my cheek
Next to the cold vacancy of yours
I never noticed
You enough
The nurses who sent us away
Looked pallid in the frost of it
Ever the contrarian
I stayed warm

They even kept the children inside
For fear they would freeze
The geese were obstinate
Oblong and silent
While we passed
My good girl
The heart of a wild thing
Life required me to put down
I could have walked forever
Walk until the hurt was gone
I never even noticed
All of these years
I had stayed warm