Savour

Treated in burley and cavendish.

Traces of coconut, rum, and vanilla curl the corners of its emulsion.

Years suspended in gelatin. Silver halide crystals saturated with

that specific green, somewhere between lime and apple,

which upholstered the armchair my great aunt smoked her black walnut briar pipe in.

I savour this scratch-n-sniff chromogenic moment,

whiffing the remnants of yesteryear and condensing her

into an exhaled breath.

published by Front Porch Review April, 2021