What Follows You Home

The hand sanitizer smell

follows me home

in my hair, my clothes,

the small creases of my hands.

I sat in a vinyl chair

for two hours.

The dispensers on every wall

were half-empty, refilled

by someone I never saw,

someone whose job is to keep

refilling the sanitizer

while people sit and wait

for someone to tell them

the waiting is over.

My friend didn't cry.

Not there.

Not where it counted.

She just sat very still

and smelled like the same

chemical flowers as everything else.

The smell means

something is ending.

I know this now.

I'll smell it on strangers

and know.

I'll smell it in my own house

and remember

the vinyl chair,

the half-empty bottles,

the way the fluorescent light

didn't flicker

because it wasn't allowed to.