Odor of Sanctity

The neighbor’s retriever is a golden sponge

sopping up the street-water and the gloom.

He stands in the hall, steaming like a kettle,

filling the tiles with that thick, heavy musk

that tastes like the back of a throat.

It’s the smell of the house on 12th Street,

where the roof leaked and the carpet stayed damp.

We lived in that fog of wool and old skin,

the animal heat of just trying to stay warm

when the oil ran out in February.

I hold the door open and let the ghost in,

the wet wool clinging to my own clean sweater

like a debt that followed me home.