Erin Schalk

My Mother’s Coat

My mother unearthed her winter coat
from the walk-in closet—
a parka she had worn
thirty years in the Midwest
and still kept in Texas.

The billowing pouch pockets
stretched up to the ribcage,
and the detachable hood was crowned
with a crescent of brindle cellulose.

Three decades had turned
the polyester a dusty plum;
entwined threads dangled from
drawstring seams like Spanish moss.

She spread the garment
across the bed with a reverence
reserved for family heirlooms.
“You’ll need this,”she insisted,
and placed it atop a pile
of wool sweaters with
velcroed shoulder pads.

*

A December ten years ago,
my mother,
muffled in her parka,
trudged through snowdrifts
toward home.

I chattered about post-college plans,
when she cut across, searing
like the wind against my frontal bone —
I had dreams too, you know —

her voice snapping
with the splintered ice sheet
under her feet.

*

As my mother stacked strata
of winter apparel into
surplus grocery bags,
I took the coat with hesitation,
vowing to never wear it.

I remember watching her
from my bedroom window,
as she shoveled
twenty-five seasons of snow,
her head swallowed in the hood’s halo,
the flakes whipping her body
like blown ash.

Erin Schalk is a visual artist, writer, and educator who lives in the greater Los Angeles area.  In 2017, she graduated with her MFA in Studio from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.  Today, Schalk teaches and is in charge of an arts education program which provides tactile art courses to blind and visually impaired students.  For more information, please visit her website.