The Smell of Grease

The smell of a parking garage has a greasy coherence
with my father’s tool cabinet that was once taller than me
lurking in the backyard shed. It must have shrunk and moved away–
maybe living in a second hand store or another home
or some storage unit stinking with a harmony long lost.
My mother’s space smelled of a different grease – a grill
with a tip jar and sweat and sore feet, and maybe she still
smells that way most days – I wouldn’t know.
These smells were subtle to me — overpowered by ones
I would’ve preferred to forget. It occurs to me now,
that no one I know smells of the pines – despite
their silent bark reeking of soft allure to me. Despite them
being forbidden and how far they seem from cubicles and
squared things, they’re rooted in the appealing sponginess
of a natural mulch that I could someday dig my fingers into
if I ever found the time to stop checking my watch.
I don’t smell like much at all, except maybe a medicinal stability
sloshing in my cerebrospinal fluid with a faint wisp of fervent ink
scratched across notebook pages years ago. All the pills
that have been up my nose made it hard to smell at all,
so I can’t know for sure. Maybe if I could siphon
a few of the chemicals away and cut through the memory
of grease with dish soap on a sponge, I could smell a nostalgia
that isn’t mine. Finally — maybe — my soul could stop
weeping for things I won’t ever have had.

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