Something brash with a touch
of bashful. An active volcano
hushed by alpine snows, or some other
less aggressive sister of cinnamon.
But that’s for special occasions:
my twenty-ninth birthday, my second
twenty-ninth birthday. For everyday,
I want to smell like a sixteen-year-old girl
at the beach. You get what I mean—
Like a saltwaterlogged corsage; like
honeysuckle forced to walk the plank;
like gardenias flung amok in a mid-
summer sunshower. I remember hearing
from some old man that a sunshower
occurs when God—or was it the Devil?—
beats his wife. What do you have
that smells like God’s
or the Devil’s wife? Notes of ozone,
brimstone—that sort of thing. I believe
in heaven, but I’ve yet to decide
if it’s the right place for me.
Strumming a harp all day sounds nice
at first, but what else? Do they have
tea parties up there? Book clubs? Anything
at all to pass the time? Even drearier
would be some conceptual realm, where,
after shedding our adornable bodies,
we’re reduced to just squiggles
of light among gazillions of squiggles
of light—sounds infinitely
pointless. Of course, there’s prettier
possibilities. Imagine this:
God’s wife, sitting at her vanity,
a mess of uncapped cosmetics spread
before her as she laughs on the phone
with Mrs. D: You didn’t! You’re so bad!
On a chipped china tray,
her go-to scents: Shalimar,
J’adore, White Shoulders, Coco
Mademoiselle, and L’air du Temps,
her favorite, with notes of iris,
sandalwood, and pink carnation,
a bit sour on my skin,
but on the right wrist, it sings.
What do you have that sings,
that swoops, that scoops petals
by the fistful and flings? That recites
Rossetti’s poetry by heart? A fragrance
that can teach me how to waltz, one
two three, one two three, dancing,
and smiling, and laughing, don’t
cry, don’t cry, no one cries
in heaven, no one’s heartsick
or confused, everyone smells
like clean, holy water, nothing
rotten, nothing wrong. What do I really
believe in? That bottle, right there—
It’s shaped like a mouse, but it doesn’t
smell like one. It smells like a woman
who walks from place to place
with grace,whose thoughts don’t spill
beyond the saucer: never stumbling
or lost. What does it cost?
–About the Author—
Annie Przypyszny is a poet from Washington, DC pursuing an MFA in Poetry at the University of Maryland. A finalist for Smartish Pace’s Beullah Rose Poetry Prize, her poetry is published or forthcoming in Sugar House Review, Tampa Review, Tupelo Quarterly, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Laurel Review, and various others. She is the Social/Digital Content Coordinator for The DC Writers Room.
*for more perfumed poetry check out Sillage #4 by Jehanne Dubrow!