In anticipation of going home, I smelled roses
preparing for bed this night
Like my mother’s face cream
that I use, always, stealthily
And roses, which I love too,
in the bathtub
Gardenia-fragranced body cleanser
: another item of my theft
Gatsby smells like talcum powder
And my room smells red, always,
like skin that is soft and comfortable
But a little bit damp or musky
It hides in it so many snow globes
Old diaries from childhood
The butterfly that Brian made me
That flew when twisted tightly
the rubber band is cracked and
broken now, though
And it sits limpidly only as a reminder
of my nostalgia even before I grew
memories
Dad smells sour and smoky, like his cigars
and something more human
His hair is curly and mostly black but a few
wiry blades of white peak through these years
He always starts his stories with:
“What happened is”
Which makes me sad because of who
always noticed it
And we can’t invoke the past now
Sometimes, I’ll go down to the basement
Which smells cold, of fresh paint,
and an old mattress that sheltered secrets but is gone now
I pick out a bottle of wine
or dig up some relic from infancy
My rock collection
or
the story of the Chinese Siamese cat
When I was thirteen I made myself wings
of twigs from the forest
They were crushed from too tight packaging amongst other
objects
And I cannot tell a wayward stick now from the things
that birds coddle around their taut bellies
-BHN
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