My father’s fencing jacket

You stood out from other fencers in that jacket
theirs were white — to compete, like in Wimbledon
yours, the teacher’s, in brown suede
put together to take hits without deflection
tough enough to take them all
told people ‘I am an oak tree’

You wore it every Friday to train your students
shifting the weight of your fifty years
calling on muscle memories of thirty earlier
you sweated, exerted
all that sweat into the jacket

On getting home you’d throw it on the heater of your shared room
the heat dry out the sweat
but only by evaporating it into the air

Your wife became sick of the heavy smell
moved it to the banister
you picked up her clothes and threw them there too
she shouted at you for being childish
I heard the argument through the wall
a rare explosion in the cold war tension

but then you died
and though unloved, you opened up a hole that my mother fell into
she needed your solidity
she took the jacket and held it to her in bed
took deep lungfulls of the heavy, hormonal sweat she had raged at

To throw this jacket away, and your smell
throw your shoes away, and their shape
was to throw away your tree-trunk safety
your fuck-you will
and that was hard