A Smell of Petrol
A stranger, you come in late glazed with rain.
Others welcome you,
dry you off with stories
of grandmothers baking bread
children picking poppies in cornfields
sisters who live on opposite ends of a rainbow.
When the stories finish
we place paper on your knee.
Your smile dies. Very meekly you say
I can’t write.
We go into a rigmarole of reassurance.
Hunching round a pen
you carve between the lines.
Refining memory turns you to a still,
your pores pump sweat.
I can’t forget the smell of petrol.
When I was a soldier…
I saw petrol turn a baby into a bomb.
Sighing, you suck it all back into your chest.
Your last sob stoppers it.
There was nothing I could do.
Out on the street the rain has stopped,
every drain exhales the smell of petrol,
every puddle is rainbow-filed.
At the heart of the memorial garden
damp asphalt smells stronger than roses.
Page(s) 45
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