The first smelled of salt:
Waves filled with sunrise.
Hands shaping bodies,
bodies shaping hands,
the breath of pebbles whispering.
The next fire.
Gasoline from tools he used to fight,
Soaked through his flannels
into our blankets, the bath,
the forest floor smoldering.
For a while, then a while, I smelled the hunt.
Ripenesses of man in pursuit.
Awakening in darkness.
Returning in darkness,
at times with the iron taste
of blood on his skin.
Years later, it was soap--
the freshness of stability,
a house with a fence and a lawn.
Even cut grass didn’t linger in his beard.
At times for meetings, our partings,
the beard disappeared entirely,
a part of himself swept aside.
She was different. I don’t remember
which smells she held. Only those around her:
Whiskey, lavender, lemons, linen.
The Hudson and Queen Anne’s Lace,
moonlit and howling.
Once a lover smelled of oak moss and amber.
I chased him to learn
where it came from
and led to
but never found the source.
but never found the source.
This one smells of clay. Deep underearth.
Like a golem he buries it in my bed.
I cannot escape.
I wonder
what is left of me
on their pillows,
in their dreams,
in their woods.
I wonder
what was left on me,
tangled in my hair,
the track marks on my body,
the remnants in my breath.
I am one who wants
what she cannot have.
Don’t give me all of you
All at once.
Little by little,
instead, seep in
to the depths of unconsciousness,
so the lightest breeze
becomes enough
to raise your ghost.
