Coats (and Aging)

Young woman working

in the restaurant last night

asked me to tell her about

my coat. An FIT student

she admired the way it was cut

and I told her how 25 years ago

I was 25 years younger

walking down the street

on the Lower East Side

a man ran up to me and said

he was Alix Singer Russian clothing designer

he’d made a coat for a woman

in Italy who didn’t want it

she was my size and even though

it was handmade he would

give me my coat for $100 and I

tried on the coat and never had

anything like it before and wrote him

a check for $100 and said goodbye.

I wonder if that could happen now.