Remembering the Plot

Today drifts into yesterday.

Difficult to remember

the food eaten, rooms cleaned.

Same with books. You read,

read, but recall only

that someone floated off,

finally, from years of solitude,

and danced naked in a bowler hat.

But the nose has a better memory,

whole lives waft back, the moments

. that linger in limbo

pulled out by a random scent.

And you stand in the street

watching a cab drive off

leaving in its wake

the aroma of a man's cigarette

that even now revives

the way his fingers pressed

deep into your thigh,

the hairs on his wrist

suddenly stricken with sunlight.