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There were of course the roses,
those silent pungent roses.
And so much smelled of white, if white had a smell.
Light in the chapel rinsed pale and clean,

fresh as the sheets swaying on the line.
There was the scent of the old and of the young.
The older women fragranced by something crooning
and familiar, you wanted to say like Marlene Dietrich,

all Shalimar and satin curtains,
my grandmother’s cold cream
as she sat stunning at her vanity,
wiping away the day along with my fears.

The older men smelled of sandalwood and gilded memories,
of football fields and dry-cleaned slacks.
Tobacco and shoes which had traveled for miles.
Whereas the young smelled awkward and clumsy,

a peachy sort of forgetfulness.
Regret had a tang, bitter and smoky,
how the people brought it beneath their feet.
Lavender sprinkled daily in the carpets
and it enveloped you with its purple arms;

down the hall a faint trail curled its fingers
and beckoned and it was the scent of childbirth
and dance corsages, of baby powder
and flour-dusted hands. Floral soap
that never quite rinsed away, a yellow ache
that hung in the air like a question.

And I thought I could smell my mother and my father,
maddening musk of gardenia and golden-frying chicken.
Cheap cologne and gasoline caressing my face
as he’d leave wordlessly out the door.

The scent of my body burning,
what blood smells like perhaps,
some cloying red urgency.
My limbs redolent of lilacs and suffering,
of peonies and fever.

Because it could get no worse.
Because it could get no worse.