Skins

[RC James]

I have old skins
given to me
that matter now.

I.

A black, 50’s leather jacket
teen hoods wore back then;
this one is from a gentler soul,
running buddy Kev, prince, 
gladiator, leader of our
endless war protests.
His grin, mock-trick eyes,
party-time hail-fellow-well-met
exhortations to go full-blast,
in all-night carouses,
prep for the barricades
the following cloudy day.
Fatally handsome, but shy
in the corners of his shine.
The big C hit him from behind,
we all of us fell with him,
he couldn’t get up along with us,
this time.

I feel honor, grace, 
and memories that surge, 
expand, when I put his jacket on;
the only protest left is shouting, 
in his voice, against absence.

II.

A Scotch plaid winter wool shirt,
designed for woods-work
and rambling; my father wore it
for both. He, a business man,
loved our land, gardens,
fields and meadows like a proprietor
of the untold riches,relief and solitude
they possessed, and shared with him.

Pre-dawn Februaries he donned it 
to plow both driveways,
loving the storms of powder
he volumed up around him.
As dawn broke, He’d walk
the maple sugar lines,
then check the collecting tub 
in the shed he’d built himself,
next to the barn brother Don and I
built along with him.

Mom waited for him
with over-easy eggs,
loving conversation,
and, yah, sometimes
slight differences.

I have
new skins
I give
proper
wear to
now.