I found your coat today,
squashed beneath all the clothes
I’ll throw away soon.
Its flattened fur collar kissed my cheek,
cooled by approaching winter.
I hugged a cliché of fists
to my chin, closed you around me.
Your perfume, six months old,
clings to the woollen thread that
once warmed your neck in a freeze.
I daydreamed of the moments
you would have written about
if you were not swept up so soon.
Two hands slid into pockets,
fingers slithered, lost in silken fathoms,
found fibres scraping their tips.
An old, worn tissue jumped
from the past into this moment and
thrust its scent deep into my chest.
Your life passed before me
brighter than a lightning bolt,
fleeting crest of a cracking wave.
Sonja Broderick
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/your-coat/
