Parka

I'm in an army green parka, standing there in the ice storm plucking long wide blades of grass, each one coated perfectly in a sheath of clear crystal. I am young, my brother is an infant and we live in an apartment in south St. Louis County, not yet the nomads we would prove to be.

Or maybe the parka is navy. Some of them were. They all were lined in blaze orange.

But I think there are pictures.

Later on, standing in the army surplus store in Galveston, buying an army green parka, made in Bundesrepublik Deutschland, talking with the owner who bore a remarkable resemblance to Jerry Garcia about winters in St. Louis, winters in Pittsburgh. "This coat got my daughter through her first winter in college." I am uncertain if he means this type of coat or this very coat. It is ambiguous at a resale army store.