Aroma

Often, I forget what you smell like.
Your sweet sweat aroma chips away from my memory,
erroded as if time had fashioned itself
an eraserhead and ticked it clear.
I don’t miss it, ignorantly wading through
a sea of other smells,
only in the time of lowest expectatiom
will it leap out from between a crowd of
beautiful women, beautiful and sad.

It always hits me in the nostrils,
then the chest, and suddently
I can feel the slow, soft tracing of
the pads of your fingers against my
left side collar bone, the weight of
your arm on my lungs.

and I keep on walking,
knowing that you will fade from
my clothes,
my mind,
like stale cigarette smoke.