Her Coat

Her Coat

Intro:

Once upon a time, I cut my hair and wore a suit as mum (teachers etc etc) had asked. Different people now accepted me. Old familiars grew away. Were they snobs, or biased? Was I an imposter? Yes to both, and it brought insights into a world of masons, bishops, businessmen, ‘ladida’ wives and people who couldn’t tell a Woolworths cover song from a real performance. In the end, I pressed reject. Soz mum, but turning into a ‘guy’ who yells at guests for creasing his suit (as I actually once did) wasn’t my idea of progress or ‘growing up’…

Her coat was belted, sensible, wool

with satin-lined secrets

of big-buttoned confidence

Camel, fawn, adult, reassuring my inner child

She enjoyed simple pleasure

focussed on the obvious,

the immutable, the certainties

but with a questioning mind

She knots the belt with an absent flourish,

as snow dances through her movie-set life,

We had pierced some societal glass ceiling, tried another menu

and we wheeled freely

in a hamstrung sort of way…and anyway

"It does no good" they say

"to marry outside your class";

We are not the same;

and we cannot be anything we want -

...though want inspires effort

and one might become, erm, something…

Once, that coat linked arms

with the home mechanic,

a dust-dappled ghost, unqualified

but thankfully, never believed in adulthood

Before she left for Switzerland,

I left her.

and dug out my insensible clothes