An overcoat

An overcoat

Big and heavy

Black as the shadow

It created

Blotting out all light

From street lamps

Frigid moon, bakelite sky

Bearing down

On the underprepared

Woe betide the urchins

Caught under its folds

Taller than a building

Wider than a doorway

Nobody stood their ground

Stumbling out of reach

Falling into the road

Scrabbling in mud

Rolling in horse muck

Hats were tipped

Eyes lowered

As the overcoat shouldered

Through a throng

Of ne'er-do-wells

Haggling over rotten potatoes

Waiting in line

At the bakery

Wrinkling noses

At the smell of death

Thick as pea soup

It clung to him

Inhabited the coat

Nobody knew

What manner of man

If man it was

Lay under the fedora

Pulled down over his face

Eyes were averted

Even the slightest

Touch was best avoided

Bad luck rubs off

Is what they thought

In the scattering

Falling to one side

Tenpins caught flush

Bowled over in the rush

To get away

As the overcoat loomed

A foreboding presence

Graceless, faceless

Nobody waited

To see where it went

For fear

It would take them

Into itself

Swallow them whole

Into darkness

Carry them away

Within its confines

Until all were consumed

Hidden in shadow

Suffocated in death

Dissolved into night

Beneath

Its heavy curtain,

Certain

One of these days

It will cover them all.