BY ROSE DEMARIS
Underneath cigarette smoke,
jacaranda blossoms,
star jasmine, ocean,
and the exhaust
of cars circling the airport,
it is there:
a scent only you can recognize
because you created it.
These molecules contain
the predictions you made
at twelve years old
when you rode your bicycle
on the path behind the backyards
of mated men and women
whose love overflowed their bodies
to take other forms:
horses, dogs, geese, goats,
extravagant honeysuckle vines,
a flock of bred budgies
advertised by a painted sign,
Blues, Whites, Grays, Violets,
an orange tree
dimpled as a bride,
fertile in white flowers,
the overturned canoe
hiding your fledgling sense of sex
and desire to be held in the dark,
on the earth. The mossy gate.
The clogged fountain
choking on leaves.
Thousands of times
you pedaled up
and down the path,
translating these sights into dreams
expressed as salty attar
on the back of your neck,
as distillations on your brow
that evaporated into air.
The air still holds them:
lifelong husband, evenings
on a porch swing, curtains
pregnant with breezes, babies
sleeping in cribs, rose
garden, peach pie, permanent
home. Canoe.
All unmaterialized.
How certain you were!
You didn’t know
the clogged fountain
was you,
its leaves the poems
you would write at forty.
At forty, you visit home.
You smell your old plans.
Like a high-school boyfriend
they come at night
through the open window
of your childhood room.
They kiss you goodbye
then wait on the path
where another twelve year old
now pedals hard,
ponders songs, sweets,
a crush with blonde hair.
Surprised by the sound
of moving water,
she breaks, breathes in,
and gets your life.
Rose DeMaris writes poetry, novels, and essays. Her fiction and nonfiction have been published by Random House, The Millions, and Big Sky Journal. She has poems forthcoming in Alaska Quarterly Review, Cold Mountain Review, and Pine Row Press, and was a finalist for the 2020 Orison Anthology Award in Poetry. A California native, she spent many years in Montana and now lives in Brooklyn.
Process Note: I’m in love with both language and life on earth, and a lot of my poems are conceived outdoors when I’m attentive to the natural world. I write first drafts by hand early in the morning when I’m still on the threshold between wakefulness and dreams.