When I first knew you,
my love, you had a cardigan
the blue of the partly-
shrouded sky this afternoon.
How many sexy guys
in their late twenties
wore cardigan sweaters,
even in the Eighties,
like Pat Boone or,
my sons’ hero, Mr. Rogers,
especially former paratroopers?
At least you only wore the thing
with its moth-gnawed holes
and missing buttons at home
in that first apartment
where I shared my draughty
study with your poems.
Sometimes, finding you there,
typing away in the blue sweater,
I tried to picture you walking
into a shop, picking it out,
and buying it. I teased that
someday it might get lost
in the dryer. Truth is, I never
knew what happened to it,
couldn’t recall when it went
missing, though I searched
high and low for it after you died.
