Not Mine

I walked into the bedroom

at the estate sale

and the air was someone else's life.

Old powder.

Cigarettes—not fresh, but lived-in,

the smell that gets into fabric

and stays there,

becomes part of the furniture,

becomes the smell of a person

long after the person's gone.

The bed had a quilted cover.

The dresser had bottles.

The closet had hangers still shaped

to bodies I'd never see.

I stood there like I was trespassing,

which I was,

but it was legal trespassing,

so I pretended that made it okay.

The smell got into my clothes.

I could smell it on my jacket

on the drive home.

I could smell it in my hair.

I brought someone else's ghost

home with me,

and I didn't know how to

wash them out.

I thought about the person

who lived here.

The person who wore that powder.

The person who smoked those cigarettes

and didn't care that the smoke

was getting into the walls,

into the fabric,

into everything.

I thought about them leaving,

about what they took

and what they left behind.

Everything I saw,

they didn't think was worth moving.

Everything I smelled,

they didn't think would matter.

I could still smell it the next day.

On my hands.

In my hair.

The smell of someone's life

that was being sold in pieces,

that was being touched

by strangers,

that was becoming

not theirs anymore.