The Scent of Labor

I sat in the library to dry my shoes

and the man in the next chair shifted his coat.

Suddenly the room was full of my father,

or the ghost of the air he used to breathe.

It’s the cedar shavings and the cold grease,

the smell of a man who spent ten hours

pressed against a lathe or a grinding wheel.

It’s a thick, heavy scent of old tobacco

and damp wool that never quite gets dry.

I forgot that work had a smell like that—

sharp enough to make your eyes water

in a room full of books and quiet people.