A Night Out at the Anosmia[*] Restaurant I accepted the offer from the pale estuary of fingers pinched on two thin slices of jicama tapped lightly with lime and a weathered rim of sweet chili powder. “Gracias,” I said in my best Ricardo Montalbán lip-sink. Friday night at our favorite Mexican franchise. “Can you taste that at all?” she asked. I sucked and replied that even where math was the official language, I was a zero. “Can you even smell it?” I …
Tag: Hospital
“Hotdogs” and Other Poems by Anthony DeGregorio
Hotdogs I smell steamed hotdogs on Hospital Avenue in Danbury Where I’ve never in 10 years seen a truck or wagon Selling the classic Americanized delicacy Within miles of the Avenue’s Hospital where I’m headed On my way to Cardiac Rehab, And I suddenly wonder if this is how time ends? The End Times merely a thick pungency, with the Condensation of existence into a smothering of mustard, Sauerkraut, and onions, the source of the apocalyptic vapor Invisible apparently to …
“AN OLFACTORY LIFE,” Fiction by Steve Carr
My nose has been trained to sniff out every objectionable smell within sniffing range. It’s a marvel of radar technology. Why the military hasn’t used my nose for national defense, or offense, I have no idea. Being in the hospital, in this bed, my nose has been working overtime. Cleaning fluids. Pure alcohol. The perfumes the nurses wear. My urine soaking through the top sheet. My nose is unable to block out the smell of any of it. My nose …