Jacqueline Hughes Simon
The History of the World in Coats
Because she was too fat to be carried, she was never dropped.
Already wet. Cold metal
zipper biting my chin.
Too tight I couldn’t see,
couldn’t move. Too-small-
-for-me snowsuit as effective
as shackles.
: :
When alone, she wondered who would cup her breast and comb her hair.
My eyebrows tweezed into scratches—
how girls learn to feel themselves.
I had straightened my hair and wore
a fake shearling coat. Its color like
my hair, where the chemicals
touched it.
: :
She wore her sex like a coat in a country where the weather is always bad.
On which coast it was bought
I can’t remember: Mink cape
inadequate for protection.
Its mangy pelts, soft
as foreskin.
: :
Who will count her teeth when she is gone?
My hair came out in handfuls,
handsome as water. I lay wrapped
in a coat of brittle green
silk. Like a corpse but with
regular breath.
Jacqueline Hughes Simon
Jacqueline Hughes Simon’s writing has appeared in the Cal Literature & Arts Magazine, The Cortland Review, Okay Donkey, Pine Hills Review, Pennsylvania English, The Rail, Stirring: A Literary Collection, and the anthology Processing Crisis (Risk Press). She was nominated for Best of the Net by Okay Donkey in 2020.
Jacqueline attended the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference and The Community of Writers’ Writing Conference on numerous occasions. She received her Master of Fine Arts in poetry from Saint Mary’s College of California. Jacqueline is a volunteer and board member of an environmental education nonprofit, where she works with and trains donkeys.