ABSTRACT
To Sheila: The continuum of first-degree experience. What can I say, or write about today that could have even a hundredth part of the consequence of that coat going back. Even the greatest art communicates only seconddegree experience. That coat is first-degree, it is life itself. That man’s family will take it back, smell him again, remember him again, it will be worn by a son or, tonight, will keep one of the small children warm in her blanket on the floor-move into her dreams, put her father back into her life. That coat withers me and my words.’
