The Naked Troubadour

The Turning Coat [poem]

Posted on Jun 6, 2011 Updated on Mar 30, 2017

I never knew what turncoat meant
until I met you
                       r alterego
                       other half

posing proudly like
   a stained old scarf
draped around my
   stranded neckline
             bent
         out of shape by
                  treacherous plotlines
your face (like your coat)
a looming warcrime

That ability to turn yourself
with gusto into someone else
that others want to see
even at the expense of trust
between you and me
is bowdlerisingly
bruised and
blessingfree

The way you become
someone altogether other
when you feel under threat
or imagine that you're
vertically smothered
is kissofdeathingly
drownful
for lovers

The reversibleelbisrever lining
on your coat has, I see,
shiny-textured
brittle buttons
beautifully turnéd out
                                   wardly
                                   in order to mask
                                   so cloakingly
                                   the seams which
                                   should have
gone in
            wardly

Some years were spent in
deskbound dread in case
that lining would be spread
through such indelicate
weaveless ease
with freezeful woes through
polyester's painful loveless
undertows
across my sizely shoulders
broad and burdened
ever-ready to receive

but all I saw were Autumn
leaves and limestone boulders
not a stitch to which a searchful
man could rightly cleave
in time to save a lonesome one
nevermind a nonesome nine

O
how
I longed
to see that
garment lining-free
as it should be with you
and me just running free
bedecked in sequins nothing
hidden undersea it's train behind
us flowingly while growingly we learn
to venture nakedly our skin for coats and
all the while ensconced by love without debris


© 2011, Alan Morrison