Mr. Coat-Off-His-Back — At the Bus Stop, January

Lyrics

January.
The third Tuesday.
The sun is a rumor behind the grey sheet of the sky.
There is a calculus to the cold.

At the bus stop on Third and Main.
A man whose breath is a white flag.
His jacket, a thin lie against the wind.
Hands deep in pockets, searching for a warmth that isn't there.
And Mr. Coat-Off-His-Back, standing beside him.
His own coat is heavy. Wool.
The collar turned up. A button missing from the left cuff.
He has owned it since 2008.

There is no great debate.
No angel on the shoulder.
Just the simple, animal math.
My heat. His lack of it.
The distance between two bodies.
A space that can be closed.
A debt that can be paid by the one who has the means.

Love is not a noun you feel.
It is a verb you do.
It is the button undone, the sleeve offered.
It is the bread broken for the room, even when you are hungry.
It is the warmth you give away.
Charity is a coat handed over in the biting wind.

He doesn't say a word.
Just shrugs the heavy wool from his own shoulders.
The cold hits his back like a slap.
He holds the coat out.
Still warm with his life.
The other man looks, a question in his eyes.
A nod is the only answer.
The coat is taken. The coat is worn.

A Roman soldier, they say, once cut his cloak in two.
Amiens, a winter night.
From that small cloak, that capella, we get the word for chapel.
A holy place made from a shared thing.
This bus stop, for a moment, is a cathedral of steam and diesel.
This is the sacrament of the material world.

Because love is not a noun you feel.
It is a verb you do.
It is the button undone, the sleeve offered.
It is the bread broken for the room, even when you are hungry.
It is the warmth you give away.
Charity is a coat handed over in the biting wind.

The 4B bus arrives, hissing.
The man in the new, warm coat gets on.
He does not look back.
Mr. Coat-Off-His-Back pulls his sweater tight.
He will walk home.
He will be cold for a little while.