“The Bathrobe”
by Sharon Olds (b.1942)
On his last birthday, my father’s wife
gave him a big yellow bathrobe she had
sewed herself – heaps of terry cloth
curling on the table for weeks, gold terry chaff
falling slowly through the air. Now he could
get rid of that old robe,
brown and speckled, short, that he was always
pulling down over his knees – it
rippled like caterpillar skin. I was there when she
gave him the new one, laid the box on his
lap and took off the top for him. “Now
what could it be!” he cried. “I wonder what
color it is!” We were beaming at each other,
we knew what was going on, we were in love
and he’d be dead soon. He didn’t take it
out of the box, it was awfully heavy,
thick yolk-yellow robe, it looked
thirsty and half alive. He just sat
pulling the old robe down
over his shapely legs, and then on its
own it would ride up those long thighs,
dark curtain on the rise. When he died
she gave me the big, fresh robe,
never worn – she wanted it to
slough some cells his cells had made, to
drink the sweat of his child. I wear it
all the time, it’s wonderfully huge and
dumpy, the sleeves are wide and their tips
hang down into everything,
stews, suds, cups of tea, I keep
wetting them and darkening them as if
dipping my father back down
gently into matter. In the mirror I see a
big kid in her dad’s clothes,
happy and proud, the way as a child I’d play
Mary, stuffing the bosom of a grownup
robe and hauling my baby around the
holy Land of the house, passing my
father unconscious on the couch, ochre
lion of the desert. I always wanted to
pick him up and carry him, get in his
loose, bright skin and walk him till he woke.
[Published in 1989]
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
1. Vocabulary:
 Chaff:

Slough:

Ochre:
2. What does the yellow bathrobe represent to the speaker, and how does it reveal
her feelings about her father? What is the role of the “father’s wife” in the various
situations involving the father’s bathrobe?
3. Although this poem is about the death of an elderly father, its tone is playful and
loving as well as candid. With what particular details does the speaker manage to
convey her devotion to her father even as she describes blemishes and untidiness?
4. In what ways do the form and diction of the poem share qualities with the
bathrobe itself?
5. In lines 14 and 15, what does the speaker mean when she says “we were in love
and he’d be dead soon”?
6. The speaker says that she wears her father’s robe all the time. In lines 26-33, what
are the specific activities the speaker is doing while wearing her father’s robe?
7. In lines 33-40, the speaker explains how she feels as she wears her father’s robe.
Other than what is said directly, how does the speaker view herself as an
individual? Explain the allusion of Mary in line 36.
8. Explain lines 40-42.