Red Jacket

 

bought at a tag sale

on a whim

collar faded

and  pocket lining

worried through

she overpaid

 

the jacket was the red

of antique passions

and banked embers

a clerk wrapped it

in tissue and twine

she took it home

 

there she tried it on

over jeans

with a black wool skirt

it changed nothing

the jacket bulky over

tan turtleneck

was all wrong

for the cream silk blouse

 

she slapped it on a hanger

hung on the  closet door

where it blazed

against a landscape

of brown corduroy jumper

a moss green shirtwaist

and slacks

the gray of stone and heather 

 

 

Martha Meltzer is a Native Californian currently living in the San Francisco Bay Area.  She is a school librarian by day and a poet by night. Once, when she was in her teens her father told her he hoped she would grow up to be a poet.