The Scent of Stasis

His door thudded shut with a heavy, expensive click,

leaving me in the driveway with the taste of plastic

and that chemical ozone that says nobody has ever

spilled a secret or a coffee on the floor mat.

Then I climbed into my own, the 2012 hatch,

where the ghost of gym socks and old damp coats

has settled into the fabric for a decade.

It smells like every road trip that went nowhere.

Down in the cup holder, there is a sticky ring

from a soda I finished in a different season.

It’s a brown, sugar-hardened map of where I’ve been,

and it doesn't wash off just because the year changed.