BY MICHELLE DYER

Yesterday I wiped a metal patio chair

with a wet rag, and it was you and me

and the tree again. The scent of wet iron

like coins in my kissing mouth kissing you.

Rain leaping off our skin, a broken string

of pearls. Father Tree keeping our bodies

upright, his thick head of hair swaying above.

Is this why I keep dreaming of you? I try to

explain this concept to a student: scent is a

lightning bolt to the hippocampus, the house

of remembrance. I want to say: it’s what happens

when it rains in the desert, or when I make metal

wet. That geologic warmth warps me to that

other time, that other place, that other person.

This symphony of sensory perception religions

itself to our core. No matter how many times we

try to scorch it off, how often we burn down

domiciles of the past, it abides, patiently. An

heirloom in the attic, the ghosts of our dreams,

the metal in my mouth when I taste blood: a memory

of you and me and the tree, that knowing third

holding the unknowing.

Michelle Dyer is a teacher and poet currently living in Phoenix, Arizona. Her work has been published in Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine, and Snapdragon: A Journal of Art and Healing, among others.

Process Note: The poem came to me from an exercise in a writing workshop for teachers, where we were prompted to write using a sense other than sight. The day before, I was cleaning the dust off a metal patio chair – the wet dusty metallic scent instantly jolted a memory I hadn't thought of in years. Writing the poem was a bit like a lightning strike, too, in the way that it happened -- swiftly, brightly, leaving me stunned.