When I wear
it I want to tell strangers
drinking sissy Martinis I shot
an unheard-of, masterly
sixty-two both Saturday and Sunday
one of those three glittering years
I held a PGA card, before
“the accident”. The phrase spurs
curiosity while the pinch
in my face cuts it off. The heft
and fabric feed the confidence
man who slithers along in my shadow,
and expand us like a parade balloon.

With an honest face
I say this: I had it fitted
by cherubic tailors
when I needed to seem older
from the cloth they use to print money.
It appears somehow official, military, foreign
like a pearly threat
uttered in another tongue
in a hot spot. I say
I keep my own dice
loaded in the pockets
in the dark where my fingers
can feel and read.
I don’t talk to them – the bones,
the people – they talk to me.
I don’t answer questions,
I ask them.
With this thing on I extract
answers, bits of truth
malleable as gold fillings
from old teeth.