2 Jackets, 2 Different Cities
written by: Carrie Magness Radna
@cmrboxwoodstar1
I packed my new puffy jacket,
the one I bought from Macy’s
Cyber Monday sale, half-off;
it bubbled in a curious loud purple color.
Magenta? Dark lilac? Raspberry?
(Yes, raspberry! Its berries are my favorites:
so succulent, so sweet, so tart…)
I didn’t even unpack it
until I returned home
and went out for sushi;
it only belongs in New York.
Mom gave me another jacket for Christmas:
causal, short, black with light grey
cozy cotton sweatshirt lining,
complete with a hood at the head,
& some Velcro straps at the wrists.
It was just like Mom’s
(hers was white).
Everyone else wore
the same jacket in Texas.
I see that jacket here too,
worn by everyone crossing Broadway.
She picked out a good one.
Every time I wear it,
I am connected to her.
Carrie Magness Radna is an audiovisual cataloger at the New York Public Library, a choral singer and a poet who loves to travel. Her poems have previously appeared in The Oracular Tree, Mediterranean Poetry, Muddy River Poetry Review, Spillwords.com, Poetry Super Highway, Shot Glass Journal (Muse-Pie Press), Vita Brevis, Home Planet News, Cajun Mutt Press, Walt’s Corner, Polarity eMagazine, The Poetic Bond (VIII-X), Alien Buddha Press, Jerry Jazz Musician, Rye Whiskey Review, Litterateur RW and First Literary Review-East. Her first poetry collection, Hurricanes never apologize (Luchador Press) was published in December 2019. Her new poetry collection In the blue hour (Nirala Publications), was published in February 2021. She won Honorable Mention Award twice, for “all trains are haunted” (Non-rhyming poetry: 2019) and “May (a Pantoum)” (Rhyming poetry: 2021) in Writer’s Digest Writer’s Competition. Born in Norman, Oklahoma, she now lives with her husband in Manhattan, New York.
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