Inventory of a Borrowed Coat

In the left pocket, a bus ticket soft as a moth's wing, the ink already forgetting where it meant to go. I wear the wool of someone taller, the sleeves swallowing my hands like tide.

The collar still holds a weather that isn't mine — woodsmoke, rain that fell on a street I've never walked. I button it to the throat and become a rumor of the body it remembers.

There is a thread loose at the hem, a small unraveling I keep meaning to mend. I tug it instead, and the coat lets go one inch of its history into my fingers, warm and pointless as an apology.

When I give it back, I will keep the shape of the wearing — the way borrowed warmth outlasts its lending, the way we carry, long after, the heat of every door held open for us.