My Father’s Closet

1 hat As soon as I put it on Brooklyn went dark, but when I took it off my wooden horse stared at me with dazzling glass eyes. 2 coat The shirred hem swished on the floor. Huge shoulders sloped like pines under snow. A panel in the lapel read Kuut, Tallinn in thread letters. I hid at the center behind jet buttons too round to undo. That coarse-nap wool outlasted Estonian winter but now the moths left a trellis of holes so it was never dark when I curled up hugging my knees. My mother cried out: Who are you? I answered in my deepest voice: His coat. 3 shoes I shoved my hands in and taught them to walk: now stumble, now march against your will, left, right, to the Narva front: now dance: and somewhere in that immense city where snow trembled in high lit windows, a footstep receded, rapid, urgent, indelible as a name.