it feels like the season’s last rain the last rain before the living sweet green on the hills turns first to the golden brown I love then to the grey brown I don’t understand the still night air encourages a cloud of the orange tree’s scent to come out of hiding, envelop the house, creeping even as far as my open window around the corner on the south wall if you stood by me you would not smell it they could not figure out how else to stop the little girl’s nosebleeds so they cauterized and left scar tissue covering the nerves now seventy years later I can count on one hand the number of things you can smell and that number does not include the smell of orange blossoms at night or the smell of the rain that is about to fall
“What You Don’t Know” originally appeared in CAESURA (The Literary Journal of Poetry Center San Jose) Ascent || Descent
