When someone dies, the clothes are so sad. They have outlived
their usefulness and cannot get warm and full.
You talk to the clothes and explain that he is not coming back

as when he showed up immaculately dressed in slacks and plaid jacket
and had that beautiful smile on and you'd talk.
You'd go to get something and come back and he'd be gone.

You explain death to the clothes like that dream.
You tell them how much you miss the spouse
and how much you miss the pet with its little winter sweater.

You tell the worn raincoat that if you talk about it,
you will finally let grief out. The ancients etched the words
for battle and victory onto their shields and then they went out

and fought to the last breath. Words have that kind of power
you remind the clothes that remain in the drawer, arms stubbornly
folded across the chest, or slung across the backs of chairs,

or hanging inside the dark closet. Do with us what you will,
they faintly sigh, as you close the door on them.
He is gone and no one can tell us where.

About this poem
"I had been working hard on a poem that fizzled. I threw it out in frustration, but I did like one of its phrases, 'the sadness of clothes.' I put those four words at the top of a blank page and a brand new poem flowed out of them."
-Emily Fragos

About Emily Fragos
Emily Fragos is the author of "Hostage: New & Selected Poems" (Sheep Meadow Press, 2011). She teaches at Columbia University and New York University, and she lives in New York City.

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The Academy of American Poets is a nonprofit, mission-driven organization, whose aim is to make poetry available to a wider audience. Email The Academy at poem-a-day[at]poets.org.


(c) 2015 Emily Fragos. Originally published by the Academy of American Poets, www.poets.org. Distributed by King Features Syndicate