The Smell That Won’t Name

That sour bite —

like overripe fruit mashed

into the crevices of a damp stairwell.

The train doors open,

a rush of sweat, wet concrete, something chemical

unfolding like an ache,

filling the car with a sickly-sweet stink

that clings to skin and memory,

sticky as a plastic bag

left to rot on a cracked stoop.

I chase the scent down corridors

inside my head,

but the name slips, invisible,

like dust motes fading in a yellow sunbeam.

It smells like childhood,

a place too tangled to place,

where paint flakes drop slow as snow,

falling in silence,

never quite settling.