It's like catching a whiff of American Beauty
perfume my grandmother wore to church,
how the scent makes me long for her
date bars and fried dumplings, iced tea
in impossibly big glasses, took both hands

certain places where you and I sat, talked,
touched knees in the dark, film looping
so Atlanta burns again, makes me

want for what couldn't have been, eaten inside out
full of ache and air, hungry all the way through

I can't park my car in front of Phil's anymore,
held at the curb, fingers white against cold black
steering wheel, humming "All My Life" to a couple
sharing french fries on the deck not ten feet away
from where we stood, where you made me want Texas
honeyed rolls, pit barbeque, shrimp cocktail

empty, I'm empty again, driving away
brittle around the edges, indeterminate,
like a passing scent I lose track of
before my tongue can say your name.  

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Shann Palmer is a Texan living in Virginia where she hosts poetry readings and works with Poetry in the Schools. Her work can be found in print and on the web in The Alsop Review Anthology, Eclectica, Melic Review, Gin Bender, and Mot Juste, among others. Her latest chapbooks, Second Printing and In the Ordinary Course of Events, are available at readings or on her website by mail.
Website: http://groups.msn.com/FlashPaperPoetry
 

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