Let me have the hand-me-downs,
from those who loved me,
and I love,
for their living,
the smell of their bodies
in the cloth.
The odysseys of life inside them.
Edges frayed,
the softness of wisdom, psalms
and sunrise.
Hand-me-downs that assuage
loneliness.
Tears dry in the seams
of sadness,
and eyes rested
with the colors from the autumn
of their summer.
The warmth of time.
No one dies
or gets lost in a hand-me-down.
I have a soul,
love covering me.
I walk in the shade
of someone’s protection.
At night I put them
gently down,
near my sleep,
as if to reach out
and touch them again,
the thousandth time.