The Smell

It hit you on the street

before you even saw the site,

that raw wood smell,

that specific fragrance

of something being cut,

something being made,

something being taken apart.

Your body went somewhere else.

Your grandfather's workshop,

the bench covered in shavings,

his hands dark with stain,

the particular way the afternoon light

came through the basement window

and turned everything gold.

He never said much.

He just worked,

and you watched,

and the smell filled the space

where conversation should have been.

It's been eight years since he died.

Eight years and you haven't been to a place

that smelled like that,

that smelled like wood and time,

like creation and deterioration

happening in the same breath.

The pile of sawdust on the ground

is still fresh, still fragrant,

and suddenly you're not on this street,

you're in that basement,

you're small again,

you're watching his hands

work the wood

like it's the only language he knew

how to speak.

Your body remembers

what your mind has been trying to forget:

that there are places that exist

nowhere but inside you,

that you can carry them

until a smell brings them back,

until a pile of wood chips

becomes a whole life,

becomes the last time

you felt like someone was showing you

how to be a man,

even if he never said it out loud.

The construction site goes on without you.

The smell is already fading.

But it's in you now,

in your clothes,

in your hair,

in the small chambers

of your memory,

where your grandfather's hands

keep working,

keep building,

keep trying to tell you something

you'll never hear

any other way.