Hoop

A heavy key
On an iron hoop
Admitted me

To a cubicle room
Where a desk and a wooden
Chair were the only appointments—

Aside from a pole in the corner and on it—
One
Long

Man’s blue coat.
It wasn’t yours to offer, but you did so nonetheless,
Extending the coat to the coatless

Like St. Vincent de Paul in an act of goodwill.
Bone-cold, all torn up by attachment,
I declined to take it

Though I didn’t have to with-
Hold, it was
Lent.

—ELANA WOLFF

(Originally published summer, 2002.)