Inventory of a Borrowed Coat

In the left pocket, a bus ticket soft as a moth's wing, the date worn to a smudge — some Tuesday that belonged to someone who is not me.

I wear his weather now, the wool still keeping the shape of shoulders broader than mine, a faint tobacco ghost that flares when I lean toward the window.

There is a button missing and a thread left dangling, a small mouth open where a hand once worried it through some long, undescribed waiting.

I do not know his name. I know only the warmth he left, the loose change of his hours gone quiet in the seams, the cold he meant to keep out.

Tonight I button what remains against the same indifferent wind, and the coat, forgiving, does not ask which body it is asked to carry home.