Gloves
October again. I lift my long green coat
off its hook, think about gloves
Your arms are hidden in your sleeves,
your coat’s cuffs tight around your wrists.
Below the surface of your skin
I imagine your blood is a Gulf Stream
warming the atmosphere, moderating winter’s threat.
Snow can’t settle at your latitudes,
any frost soon burnt off. Your lips deepen
like a bruised sunset. I dig in my pockets
still fumbling for gloves. I feel for them
flattened since their last wearing.
I pick a toffee-wrapper from their folds,
slip my fingers into the fleece.
I want us to hold hands in the street.
You keep your hands in your pockets:
you have no gloves. When you’re a child
a pair of gloves can be tied
by a cord running up each sleeve
meeting at the back of the neck.
And to be sure not to mix them up
you can stitch left and right into the fabric.
Today is it too early in the year for gloves?
Mist thins and disappears out of our mouths.
Page(s) 12
magazine list
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- Shearsman
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- Thumbscrew
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