Scent

In theory

I have written you out of my memory.

Still, the middle of my face

refuses to be told.

I’m undone. Perhaps it is the air in my head.

Three years. And I did too much work on our love.

Three years

and I can’t undo the problem of your scent.

It is a horrid and complicated fact.

My fifth sense an ambush. I walk by the bakery, chip shop,

flower stall, shopping centre,

leather goods store

all the Mornings in Lancashire still smell like you.

Last week I was caught in a storm overseas.

When the rain smell drove me silly

all I could see were your eyes.

Now home, I light the stove. I cook new food these days

from recipe books. Now that you’re gone I can fry meat.

I buy a perfume I know you hate

and spread it on your side of the bed.

still

you greet me in waves I can not decipher.

Last night I smelled you in a dream.

It is a thumbprint now

but I can’t forget the loss.

I dreamed you beautiful.

You are

nothing beautiful. But

three years

and I can’t clean you off my skin.