by John Grey
I walked through my sister’s bedroom
to get to my own,
sniffed out the dregs of their perfumes.
A whiff of imitation Paris
lit up the depths of my nostrils,
and traces of powder tickled my throat.
I was twelve years old
and there were no man smells in the house.
No tonic for the hair.
No oils slapped across the chin.
No sweat of a hard day at the railyard.
The walls, the air,
awaited more stringent colognes,
a six-pack’s worth of breath,
the pungent odor of working boots.
It was me they had in mind.
I urged them to be patient.
I’d be thirteen in a month.