Wool Overcoat by Robert Demaree

In retrospect
It may have been
Naïve
To buy a nice wool overcoat,
Even drastically marked down,
When, at midlife,
We came back east
From the Gulf South,
To tend to our parents
In their last years and days.
I have worn it maybe thirty times
In thirty years,
Less often of late.
This works out,
By my calculations,
To three bucks or so
Each time I put it on,
February, a year ago,
I seem to recall,
The most recent time
And perhaps the last.



Robert Demaree is the author of four book-length collections of poems, including Other Ladders, published in June 2017 by Beech River Books. His poems received first place in competitions sponsored by the Poetry Society of New Hampshire and the Burlington Writers Club, and have appeared in over 150 periodicals. A retired educator, he resides in Wolfeboro, N.H. and Burlington, N.C.