Ode to a Canvas Utility Coat

The-big-mo on the Well actually sent the following letter to Lands’ End and they called to say the poem was 'interesting' and they would comply with her refund request.


June 26, 1996

Dear Lands’ End:

The enclosed jacket looks so strange that I didn’t want to just return it. I wrote an ode to it.


To A Canvas Utility Coat

Oh, collar that wraps around my neck like a hapless sausage,
Your halves do not touch.
An unholy act that in sewing class
Would be condemned with a scarlet ‘F.’

Oh, poor diagonal buttonhole across my bosom.
Have you no button to be your mate?
Lonely, Lonely, Lonely.

Oh, fabric that is perhaps interesting,
Perhaps ugly.
I believe you are interesting in your ugliness.

Oh, metal buttons
Whose crude center stem reminds me
Of my newborn child’s belly button stump,
Freshly clamped and sheared,
A strange appendage, for a button.

Fie on thee, vendor 1637. Fie! Fie!

And I thought the jacket looked pretty good in the catalog.
Can I also get the shipping back?

Maureen Kachline
Order 1184152-0