Scents

Some scents bring me back.

Fresh cut grass takes me to summers spent with pulpy lemonade, 

posted on a front porch swing.

Musky wood takes me to Mimi's basement, 

beating on chests and bouncing on faded furniture lost in love, 

buried in boundlessness.

Beef stew takes me to crockpots bubbling over – to shy, shallow breaths

over God-gifted broth. Kerosene heater playing metronome in

the frost-tipped mudroom.

Frosted Flakes take me to unlocked doors at friends'

houses, mothers beckoning me not to knock, to come on in for

the umpteenth time. That the TV's all yours and 

we saved leftovers in case you're hungry. 

Pine take me to glitter and glue on

candy cane stockings – needles crushed to mill, 

sticks cracked to snuff and whittled down to cast spells 

on haphazard gingerbread houses.

Running creek water takes me to infinity. To tire swings and 

toad croaks and frog burps and squirrel scurries

and portals we'd leap into, hoping to get lost inside ‘til summer.

Some scents bring me back.

Stale cardboard and stiff Sharpie takes me to boxed up attics. 

To overflowing Uhauls and lost action figures and tears from 

cousins holding tightly to my windbreaker, begging me to stay. 

And me, validated now, turning around to do the same to my mother’s coat.

Some scents, bring me back.

California oak and grass bathed in chemicals takes me 

to new beginnings. To lonely lunches and trees without limbs. 

To stumbling introductions and salty sea breezes pelting my face, 

waking me up, causing me to age ten, twenty, sixty years before 

I could finish my cereal. Before I could flip the station to Saturday cartoons. 

Before I could make any sense of it at all.