caroline ridgway

When the breeze catches just right

I can smell the gardenias in the neighbor’s yard.

A pretty fiction, with ivory blossoms in their full unfurl

that smell like grace and bruise like egos.

I suspect it would supersede accepted

customs to clip a couple for my own.

Or pitch a chair in closer proximity

for purposes of brazen inhalation—to sit and do

nothing but breathe in.

Passing by, I keen my senses like a dog

with its head lolling out a car window, impatient

to fix my taste. It’s a scent that marks spring’s quick

processional to summer. Redolent of.