the heavy scent
of impending rain 
steaming above 
the pavement
wet dust
department 
store perfume of a shifted
lover moving towards me
across a crowded room
it snakes up my nose
dry, viscid, nesting
coiling into a roll that
fits neatly into the retreat
it builds in 
my northwest
passage 
one whiff
lingering by
the taste
of onion dip

the better memories 
interlace of her scent and
leg stubble scratching
me under the green 
flannel sheets
lips like saltwater taffy

the sheer ugliness of human
relations caught in the centrifugal
force of uninvited need
 

- Rita Chapman