My friend said, “Take this,
it’s more you than me. My
boss
brought it back from Italy.”
“Little Italy,” I said. “It’s
just
a version of Fendi.”
Offended,
she left. If perfumeries, in
their
flimflammery can depose attar
of rose
to mere coal tar perversion,
why not
“Inversion of Fendi?” Instead
of attracting,
this perfume could repel,
excite
if only for the length of a
smell
with the option to create one’s
own world,
to corrupt a perfume which
once could be counted on
to deliver essence of lily to
my earlobe
and a man to my feet,
when I still wanted that. And
why should I when
the real essence of our time
together isn’t love
but approximation brought on
by proximity, by shared toothbrush
holders,
pajama bottoms, colognes, a
belabored labor
of clasps and gasps and
orange juice
spiked with disinterest.
So maybe I go shopping. Maybe
the scent draws
me in to someone else’s
funeral where I find
Lily, rich and falling over
in bloom. Maybe I doubted her
existence,
essence not aroma but supine
elegance
created solely to disturb my
equilibrium.
But am I kidding myself?
Initially, bouquets
were placed at head and feet
so you could approach
the corpse without gagging.
Corpses
don’t stink these days, but
banks
of flowers scream, “Dead
person ahead!”
And it’s my life which smells
of embalming fluid until I
sense
the real essence of flowers,
and at a kneeling rail
for supplicants like me, I
discover what happens
to those who want only to
worship her
cascades of bloom, not the
rot
in the casket, not here where
they are tucked
and trussed so tightly in
imposed bouquets
there is no room for individuality,
and even her colors run
together and are stained
with that vein of purple
blood which links
us all to each other, where
artistic impulse ends
in the grave, a pool of mud
where someone
other than us is bent
on tidy categories, strings
of delineation
that keep flowers and women
nameless and aromatic.
I want to say I cut her free,
but she was cut
anyway and no one could touch
her essence. I want to say
I drove out that night,
leaving you, and now my own life
lures me along new high ways
and solitary lanes
where untidiness is all I
speak of,
defending Fendi herself.
©2021 Muriel Thumm
