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Column 447

Little Parka

Intro by Ted Kooser
10.13.2013

Per­haps you’ve expe­ri­enced the sud­den, unset­tling inti­ma­cy of putting on some­body else’s jack­et and find­ing a wad of tis­sue in the pock­et. Here’s a fine poem by Debra Nys­trom, raised in South Dako­ta and now teach­ing in Virginia.

Little Parka

Dream of Mom’s red parka gone—
someone stole it right out of the closet
of the burned-down house—what
good could it do anybody else, broken
zipper that always got caught,
she’d jimmy it loose, just part
of putting it on—and she was so tiny,
the arms too short even for me,
too-tiny gloves in the pockets, thumbs
stubby, practically useless to anyone
but her—they deserve it if they shove in
a hand, find the tissue she used and then
left there who knows which cold day,
what she needed it for, or why.

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Disclaimer

We do not accept unsolicited submissions

We do not accept unsolicited submissions. American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2009 by Debra Nystrom, from her most recent book of poems, Bad River Road, Sarabande Books, 2009. Reprinted by permission of Debra Nystrom and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2024 by The Poetry Foundation.