A Smell I Can’t Name

Flour dust rises, caught in streetlight's bend,

tang of yeast mixed with damp and dust.

A bakery’s door cracked open, scent

slips past me, wild, a memory’s gust.

Warmth folded into cold air’s breath,

like mornings wrapped in half-known tales.

The smell’s a ghost without a name,

a faded map where feeling fails.

Dust and yeast and something else,

one scent crumbles into time.

I chase it down like falling bells,

but meaning dangles just off rhyme.