A Study in Coats

I enjoyed the program, my aging
father tells me, but these TV actors
all put their coats on in the same
ridiculous way. They must learn
from one book. You didn’t notice?

I didn’t.

Well, they swing their coat
like a cape and it goes flying around
over the shoulder. Were it you or me
we would break things.
We’d never get our arms in.

He waits on the phone. I hear him breathing.

I try to recall scenes of coats
worn with humility, picturing instead
my father leaving for work in the dark
each morning, a calligraphy of threads
hanging from his jacket lining.

I want to say, suspension of disbelief.
But maybe there comes a point
where you need to see
the struggle. The stiff movements
and the fight with zip and buttons.

And did you ever notice, I finally ask back,
how someone being chased
runs straight ahead till what’s behind
mows them down, when all
they had to do was step aside?

Of course, he replies.
They stole that from our dreams.