What's in the Air

She stood at the dairy case—

cream on her hair or skin—

and left in that place

a smell like within

my own forgotten room.

I couldn't ask, couldn't name it.

I stood in the gloom

of fluorescent, trying to frame it—

white tile, a window, hands

not mine, steaming the glass.

Three days and still I stand

in the aisle, unable to pass

the moment when I should

have asked. All I have now

is the thick of it, understood

as the thing I can't avow—

that I'm still looking for proof

that I belonged to someone

who made me smell like truth,

like I was someone.