Eau-de-Intimacy

By M.S. Marquart

The breeze carried an aroma of childhood in Algiers,

a night-blooming flower somewhere nearby, elusive

My love called me on the phone as he walked home,

invited me to join him in searching.

So, after midnight, we sniffed through the dark community gard

until I had to sit with my cane and watch him wander,

bending down to press his nose to moonlit gray blossoms,

reaching out to gently guide shadowy branches to his face,

lifting his nose to the wind to track the fleeting perfume

Later, I could walk again, and found a likely suspect;

he inhaled, considered quietly, said yes.

He told me of late nights with friends, smelling this flower on his way home

It was a new scent for me, a sweet musk empty of emotions

from youth in my San Francisco suburb,

a continent and a half away from my love.

We journey this life together, each of us thousands of miles from our roots.

We share the present and the future,

but he will never hear stories of schoolgirl silliness from my old friends,

or see exactly where the Big Dipper watched me park my first car every night

I will never taste his grandmother’s chakchouka

or passionately sing along to his favorite ’90s Algerian pop songs

on a road trip to Oran or a Tunisian beach.

Far from our beginnings, this rare reminder

of buried moments was a blessing.

My love took my hand to travel back in time together,

following a forgotten floral fragrance.

🩷🩷🩷

M. S. Marquart (she/her) is a disabled, mixed race Asian American poet. Her poetry explores the impacts of chronic illness and seeks to shed light on the hidden daily life of people with myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME/CFS) and long covid. Her Instagram is @m_s_marquart and her website is www.msmarquart.co

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