Scented Air

it’s said that scent
is a safe-passage airlock to elsewhen
suggesting a metaphor bridge
to the past wherein
the drift of molecules
into a nose
induces a transport
more convincing, more sure
than song, visual rapture, or touch
to a place removed
(a place we call yesterday)
as if there really was a time-before
instead of his unremitting now
—as if the smell of warm
baked bread floating through
a passing window
is more than
a neural apparition
of my mother’s kitchen
baked into my brain
real as any present  
pleasure or pain
in an instant
reversal of time
as tenuous as
the scent of
today


Jim Culleny
5/3/21