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(For when I worked in funeral service, my longest employment.)

There were of course the roses, 
those silent pungent roses. 
And so much smelled of white, if white had a smell. 
Light in the chapel rinsed pale and clean, 

fresh as the sheets swaying on the line. 
There was the scent of the old and of the young. 
The older women fragranced by something crooning 
and familiar, you wanted to say Marlene Dietrich perhaps, 

all Shalimar and satin curtains, 
my grandmother’s rich cold cream 
as she sat stunning and beautiful at her vanity, 
wiping away the day along with my fears. 

The older men smelled of sandalwood and gilded memories, 
of football fields and dry-cleaned slacks. 
Tobacco and shoes which had traveled for miles. 
Whereas the young smelled somewhat awkward and clumsy, 

a peachy sort of forgetfulness. 
Regret had a tang, bitter and smoky, 
how the people brought it beneath their feet. 

Lavender was sprinkled daily in the carpets 
and it enveloped you with its purple arms; 

down the hall a faint trail curled its fingers 
and beckoned and it was the scent of childbirth 
and dance corsages, of baby powder 
and flour-dusted hands. Floral soap 
that never quite rinsed away, a yellow ache 
that hung in the air like a question. 

And there were times I almost thought I could smell my mother and my father, 

her maddening musk of gardenia and her famous golden-frying chicken. 

And I could smell my Dad's crisp woodsy cologne and that pleasant scent of gasoline always caressing my face 

every time he’d leave wordlessly out the door, and I'd ache to ask
but never could, 

Daddy, when are you coming
Home.