I steal scents from strangers,
skins skirting a sense of someone else
like flowers sent to the wrong address
and thoughts lean towards intense,
fragrances on the less familiar
that feel more personal
than these perfumed impostors
pilfering my past, more a fancy to my form
than a complete composition of theirs,
I can tell a dahlia from a daisy.
I slip through these scents
on these skins of strangers
through moments on metros moving
and slide suddenly
into arms once wrapped in
and sheets once strangled by,
the prick of every rose
that can one day rot,
(one must remember to change
the water in the vase!)
all memories of muscle and muddles
that have since slipped from this lined skin,
like veins vying on leaves that have caught
themselves onto the branches of other trees.
Stale tales on the scents of new strangers.
All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly