FUR COAT

By Liza Hudock

A family of mice must have lived inside,
coming and going through holes in the silk lining.
It would explain the trove of cat food
I sent skittering across the floor when I pushed
an arm through the right sleeve. It would explain
the smell, like the corner of a barn.
One mouse must have decided the coat
was not a predator but rather an enormous
floating patron. Perhaps they all agreed upon a tithe,
they named it Boss Mouse, protector
of the nest and food. I don’t know
whose coat this is, which ancestor’s initials
are embroidered in the lining, but it fits me
perfectly. I wear it like an extra
layer of awareness, me
in someone else’s coat,
a remnant within a remnant
of I know not what. Like the loaf
of bread they found inside an oven
at Pompeii. The baker slid it off the peel
and closed the lid, believing.

Liza Hudock lives in Detroit, Michigan. She received her MFA from Warren Wilson College. Her first collection of poems, Reveille, is forthcoming from Flood Editions in 2025.