In my teens, my father liked to wear my hand-me-downs,
anything I’d outgrown: a lime green pullover sweater,
pilled, stretched out at the neck;
a gold-buttoned blue blazer, sleeves
shiny at the elbows, threadbare at the wrists.
His favorite, it turned out, was my high school letter jacket,
navy wool, white leather sleeves, a big block letter “P”
on the breast. “You really gonna wear that?” he’d joke.
“In public?” “With pee on it?”
When I left for college he took to wearing it
while raking leaves or shoveling snow.
My high school friends, driving past, would think he was me,
back home, flunked out, and wave. And he’d wave back.
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