Second Hand Jacket

Soft little ridges
Of camel-colored fuzz
Look bookish, masculine,
Elbow patches and all;
But it’s thicker than most,
A deep corduroy,
Warmer than wool,
Softer than fur,
And made for me.

$1.25 at goodwill,
back when I was young,
with inside pockets
to carry what I needed with me.
Wearing my home,
a bulky stained real-estate,
the only place mine.
Inside those satin-stripe lining walls
no one could take a thing from me.

Little more to claim, back then,
than a tattered used coat.
Little more to claim me
than my since-deferred dreams.

If I dawned that jacket, like a super-hero’s cape,
Could I defeat the thought police…
evade the clutches of the combine’s henchmen
and slip into myself again?