Smell Is the Last Memory to Go

on my block, a gate

on my block, a tree smelling

of citrus & jasmine that knocks

me back into the arms of my dead

mother. i ask Ross how can a tree

be both jasmine & orange, on my block

my neighbors put up gates & stare

don’t like to share, on my block

a tree I can’t see, but can smell

a tree that can’t be both but is

on my block, my mother’s skirt twirls

& all i smell is her ghost, perfume

on my block, a fallen orange

smashed into sidewalk

it’s blood pulped on asphalt on my

block, Jordan hands me a jasmine

by the time i get home

all its petals are gone