He smells of — what?
It’s like wet coal-dust.
He came very late:
tangled brown hair, his face
streaked, and bleary;
no gloves, but (Merry
Christmas) from a mission, twice
blest — a good warm coat
that could go anywhere — and had!
now puckered, snagged, hem spread
from sleeping out, and ripped
around one leather elbow,
and buttoned crooked. There were no
other buttons now. He slept
there in his pew.
The giver of his topcoat eerily
watched, her widow’s desolation clearly
inconsolable now
(a pang — like joy!),
to see what she had seen
on a fine, and steady man
made come full circle on this ruined fellow.
Still, he had his coat,
and she, the echoing years.