Lost: Green Coat

Annette Sisson

Dark pine and quilted,
hip length, button-up-
no-zipper—not at Dad’s
condo as I’d pictured it
for the last two weeks.

Have you given up on me?

I contact the social service director 
at his long-term care facility: My father’s
able-bodied roommate has barricaded
the door, raves about sharing space. 

                     Do you want me to bring you coffee
and a doughnut in the morning, Dad?

My dog sleeps in her crate 
in his empty living room.

I phone the Elder Care attorney.

You said you’d take me out
of this place, out to breakfast. 

Does my father still own a coat? 

I check the child-sized
wardrobe for his beige fleece.

 Are you comfortable being spoon-fed 
in a restaurant, Dad?

My coat might have been left
in the hotel room’s closet.

I find Dad’s will filed away
in his garage, notes
for the funeral service
in the family Bible.

       I’m an old man now. I’ve accepted that.

My other coat is pearl gray 
wool—too fine for walking
the dog in muddy snow.

Voicemail: Medicare 
has denied your appeal,
no reason cited.

         When will you take me home?

I call the dog inside
as the neighbor’s collie 
rushes toward us, call
to schedule my father’s
haircut, call the nurse
for test results, call
the orderly to help me
take him to pee, guide
him into the wheelchair. 

         Dad, how about if we go
to the pancake house up the street?

Is my green coat stuffed
under the Subaru’s back seat?

Ask the aid to trim
his nails, ask when he’ll
receive his next shower.

I bundle Dad’s frail frame
against the sharp air. 

The coffee is so fresh. If you cut up
the pancakes, I’ll try to feed myself.

Tomorrow I’ll drive to the hotel.
Surely the desk clerk will recover
my coat from the lost and found.

I lift the fork, slide the last
few bites into my father’s
mouth. A small boy peeks
around his mother to stare.
Blind, Dad doesn’t notice.

         I dropped some food in my lap,
  felt it land on the napkin. 

Through the thick paper I brush
my father’s thigh—wasted, only bone.

I know the green coat
is gone.

Annette Sisson lives in Nashville, TN. Her poems appear in Birmingham Poetry Review, The Blue Mountain Review, Cider Press Review, Citron Review, Five South, Rust & Moth, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and other journals and anthologies, including Terrapin’s What the House Knows and Tupelo’s Milkweed Anthology. Her second book, Winter Sharp with Apples, was published by Terrapin Books in October 2024, and her first, Small Fish in High Branches, was published by Glass Lyre Press in May 2022. In 2024, her poem “Deep in Milkweed” was a finalist for the Charles Simic Prize, and two others were nominated for the 2024 Pushcart Prize.