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The Sadness of Clothes
When someone dies, the clothes are so sad. They have outlived
their usefulness and cannot get warm and full.
You talk to the clothes and explain that he is not coming back
as when he showed up immaculately dressed in slacks and plaid jacket
and had that beautiful smile on and you’d talk.
You’d go to get something and come back and he’d be gone.
You explain death to the clothes like that dream.
You tell them how much you miss the spouse
and how much you miss the pet with its little winter sweater.
You tell the worn raincoat that if you talk about it,
you will finally let grief out. The ancients forged the words
for battle and victory onto their shields and then they went out
and fought to the last breath. Words have that kind of power
you remind the clothes that remain in the drawer, arms stubbornly
folded across the chest, or slung across the backs of chairs,
or hanging inside the dark closet. Do with us what you will,
they faintly sigh, as you close the door on them.
He is gone and no one can tell us where.
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Emily Fragos is the recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship in Poetry, the Witter Bynner Poetry Prize from the Library of Congress, and the Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts & Letters. She is the author of four acclaimed books of poetry, Unrest, Saint Torch, Hostage, and Little Savage, and the editor of seven poetry anthologies for The Everyman’s Pocket Library: Music’s Spell, Art & Artists, The Great Cat, The Dance, The Letters of Emily Dickinson, Poems of Gratitude, and Poems of Paris. She has also written numerous articles on music and dance, and served as guest poetry editor for Guernica. Her work has been translated into Spanish by Natalia Carbajosa and into Japanese by Yuka Urushibata. Emily Fragos has taught at Columbia, Yale, and NYU. She lives in New York City.
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Exquisite, tender, smart poem. Love it!
Posted by: Diane | June 05, 2022 at 09:58 AM
"Words have that kind of power." Thank you Emily Fragos for including us in this beautiful and universal lament. The clothes that make the man. The living clothes. Guardians of energy, of breath, of memory.
Love and Poetry
Indran Amirthanayagam
Publisher, Beltway Editions
(www.beltwayeditions.com)
Posted by: Indran Amirthanayagam | June 05, 2022 at 10:10 AM
I love this poem! And it also makes me think of all the Goodwill, thrift, Salvation Army clothes...the tenderness of those who came before and wore them. And where these clothes will go..."Do with us what you will..."
Posted by: Denise Duhamel | June 05, 2022 at 10:58 AM
Lovely. Sometimes the simple and otherwise overused word "sad" is the most perfect for a poem that speaks this directly. Thanx, Emily & Terence
Posted by: Jack Skelley | June 05, 2022 at 12:33 PM
This poem is perfect for its purity, dignity, sweetness, and surprise. Emily Fragos is one of my favorite poets for this reason. And one of America's Best Poets! Her colors are just right, not too bright and not too pale. She gives us the center of poetry, where it is truest.
Posted by: Grace Cavalieri | June 05, 2022 at 12:42 PM
Straight to the heart.
Posted by: Beth J. | June 05, 2022 at 12:49 PM
Emily Fragos has perfectly captured loss in her very moving poem. The accompanying painting is equally perfect.
Posted by: L. Fiore | June 05, 2022 at 01:08 PM
Yes, this combination of art and poetry is superb! Bravo!
Posted by: Alice Quinn | June 05, 2022 at 01:20 PM
Such a perfect image--the clothes that "cannot get warm and full"--to capture grief. Stunning.
Posted by: Rebecca Goldstein | June 05, 2022 at 03:18 PM
solace, i remember when...
Posted by: julie moses | June 05, 2022 at 03:45 PM
Great poem Great painting
Posted by: Susan Campbell | June 05, 2022 at 04:06 PM
Wonderful poem and painting! As in so much of Emily’s beautiful work, the poem transcends its sadness.
Posted by: Stacy Pies | June 05, 2022 at 04:21 PM
This poem touched my heart!
Posted by: Mary J Rieser | June 05, 2022 at 04:39 PM
Exquisite limning of an experience that becomes, at some point, all but universal. For me it was going through some of the personal effects of my father, especially his shoes, worn just so by walking miles and miles, walking he would never do again.
Posted by: Robert Engelman | June 05, 2022 at 05:48 PM
What a great imagery for a life to go! I was deeply moved to read this GREAT poem!! Thank you so much for awakening me!!
Posted by: 漆畑 祐佳 Yuka Urushibata | June 05, 2022 at 05:53 PM
I adored this poem by Emily F. It captures all of the grief when someone has gone. There is no tragedy, only loneliness and loss remain.
Posted by: Barbara Rosenthal | June 05, 2022 at 08:17 PM
The poem moves as if effortless, as if without artifice. The clothes speak after having been spoken to, and what they say is true. The clothes will have nothing to do with transcendence or battle. Emily sees their fidelity, their stubbornly folded arms. She hears the clothes speak. She writes it down, and I want to cry, her tenderness is so startlingly sharp.
Posted by: Greg Miller | June 05, 2022 at 08:21 PM
Clothes as words, words as weapons against the inexorability of time. Beautiful.
Posted by: Natalia Carbajosa | June 06, 2022 at 02:34 AM
A new and intelligent way to express grief, which through its art joins forces with beauty.
Posted by: Don Berger | June 06, 2022 at 06:31 AM
Using clothes to express grief is brilliant and at the same time heart rending.
Posted by: Allen Wright | June 06, 2022 at 09:13 AM
Jack: Thanks for the comment.
Posted by: Terence Winch | June 06, 2022 at 02:33 PM
I grabbed the cuff of my shirt remembering them.
Posted by: Jody | June 06, 2022 at 02:41 PM
Now I know why I kept and wear so many of my beloved mother's clothes, now overwhelming my closet, and why I sent a package of my deceased husband's ties across the country to our only son. I didn't want them to be sad!
I felt so much of this poem, dear Emily.
Posted by: Susanne Braham | June 06, 2022 at 04:01 PM
Lovely lovely elegy. Thank you.
Posted by: Anne Harding Woodworth | June 06, 2022 at 05:51 PM
The comments have such emotion and grace that they are like an extension of the poem itself, which is so expressive and so clear and so readily seen as true even though we likely never expressed its feeling so beautifully ourselves.
Posted by: Peter Kearney | June 06, 2022 at 06:07 PM