all my past
      imposes on my breath today

i enter a grand mosaic public building
        and on goes my medical face mask
i join the back of the queue with my documents in one hand
            and my numbered butcher ticket
                          in the other
i admire the mosaics
               a jarring tide of art against the bureaucratic purpose
                     of these rooms
gauzed in with own product exhaust
       all my past  is attending    
exhumed
  patted  into my breath
    baiting remembrance with unsubtle notes
for example :
   integrated spittings of 'drum' tobacco (i quit a decade ago)
horning catches of cologne every boy used as a teen
seasonal scents  unweaned from deep in my system
(some reigned in from the different countries
                                                    i lived in or visited)
then i am frisked back to infancy   with breast milk and rusks
it's all there    a basking flippancy
all there in musk about my face
  one fragrance after another

it's an honest relief
     to host an alternative to my 'old man' breath
           but odd and concerning
something of the brain ?

You smell like pure warmth, sweet and heady, like a muggy summer night just after a heavy rainfall; earthy. A wet cedar, woody scent with an undertone of citrus. You smell of home, a sheltered blanket of safety.

Child's play can smell of

tobacco smoke, camphor, cat --


and burnt porridge.

I rake the ashes

of the olive stones and I --


smell my homesickness.

I caught a whiff of you
In your cloud of tobacco
It was a soft, subtle smell
Enough to call me back though

It tickled my nose
and my other senses
It wasn't floral like rose
It was just your pretenses

There was lavender burning
But that wasn't it either
It was sultry and raw
I don't know why I bothered

I couldn't rest my finger
I don't know what it was
Perhaps it was your eyes?
Burning down our love

I've always preferred finding out what time it was by looking at the watches of strangers,
Preferably on a morning carriage where the forgotten time difference from fading holidays meet the eternally shaken bracelets
Strangers, on their way to an oversized office smelling like old tea and leftover birthday cake.

My eyes, moving from one being to the next,
wondering if they woke up in their own bed.
Disparate attires or obedient consumerism, smells of cologne and *****, unironed shirts and loose ties,
Remains of a night too quickly ended or of a morning that started off wrong.
Strangers, burning the courage to face the dread of small talk talk and mindless tasks.

A half hour turnover of faces, smells and stories,
Strangers, unknowingly sharing their lives with me.

.
On a sweet apple crisp cold day we walk
When the air is acrid with distant wood smoke
And bright Leaves fall with determination 
Creating the season’s rich tapestry.

I run to keep up
Your science makes me grateful 
For the rest 
I notice still
My loose-mitted hand tentatively held out 
To all manner of wonders that
My own hasty glances would have missed.

The stream, now  
A sweet musty rug of russet rot,
Rambling with red and black fodder
For urgent little colonies of foragers
Who wait for wonders of the earth to be passed 

There are days like this
Stopped
To sip sweet tea from your flask
The ecstasy of the smallest thing
Remembered.