Poetry

Everything Fits

The countless pairs of socks with their heels just starting to come through
and the wrinkled but clean white spotless V-necked undershirts.

The pants and collared polos that were his style but never mine, the collection of belts
and the assortment of baggy briefs he always slept in with the windows wide open.

The closet-full of jackets hanging plumb, one or two or more for each shade of every season,
a whole life’s worth of second skins designed for both fair weather and foul.

Even the shoes—shaped by hundreds of unhurried and unrecorded miles to conform to
the exceptional arch of his instep and the double D width of his feet—fit.

So too the capricious or personal items, the 7. inch Stetson Roadrunner with the low bent brim
and the watch my mom wants me to have, especially.

Everything fits: whether it be over my head or around my waist or wrist or right across my back,
where I can already feel the hard weight pulling on the long bones that I inherited from him.

Now that he’s gone,
everything fits.