Brown leather jacket

This is the jacket for you, my friend,’ he says
and before I realise it my arm is at a right angle
as he slips it on.

‘Looks good!’ he says, his colleague joining us to agree.
‘How much?’ I ask and again he tells his colleague that rarely
does a jacket seem so right for one of his customers.
This brown leather jacket that is heavy to wear
but as they walk me to the mirror feels like it might be too big and I ask
‘How much’ and his colleague says it really does look like a good fit, not
too big,

‘not too big at all’ my man agrees
and I admit that it is the kind of coat I would like and I ask how much
he walks me to the counter and shows me the price tag.
I apologise, say that £350 is far too much for a coat I don’t really need
that is probably too big anyway.

‘I want this man to have this coat,’ he says to his colleague.
And he does. I can see it on his face.
He really wants me to have this brown leather jacket.
He taps numbers into his calculator but I say that £250 is still too much
and make for the exit but he says ‘No, no,’
like he knows something that I don’t.
‘You have to have this jacket.’
We shake on £200.

I’d only gone in for a browse.

Later in the day I see him collecting his kid at the infants
on Kentish Town Road. He recognises me
or perhaps the coat and says
‘Looks good!’ thumbs up
and it starts to feel like it fits.