– Parody of Nancy Morejón’s The Dead

The smell is what’s absent,

invisible, unforgotten.

Queen of the Night blooms,

its loneliness swaying amid the moonlight.

The smell comes from my dream

or it comes from the dusk

to feed my repulsion,

from wind chimes,

from father’s molded winter coat,

from perilla leaves,

from spoons and sea sprays,

from the knife blinded by use,

on the graffiti of malls,

on the shadow,

on the skin,

on spin.

In the droplets of fog,

appears the face of smell.

In the fragment of the Heaven Lake

upholding high clouds,

lies the hidden smell of history.

The smell remembers.

The smell dances.