As if the years had not unpinioned

The Letter L

She walks in, young, laden with books, the open
door pressing her scent inside before she’s crossed
the threshold of the café. She smells like you, like
the perfume I bought for you, that scent that was you
and you alone, the perfume that after eight years still
clings to the sheer black brassiere you sent me from
Kriens before we ever shared a kiss or made love,
the deep nose that makes me ask her what it is, if it’s
known by a singular woman’s name, a name I cannot
readily recall until she tells me Burberry, but that isn’t
it, so I look at my keyboard and the letter L whispers
Laura, it was Laura Biagiotti, yes that’s it, and I tell
her it smells as if it comes from the same aromatic family,
that it takes me wholly and completely as when a bell
sends an angel from an opened shop door that one turns
to watch walk slowly in, young and beautiful as if heaven
itself has not had any adverse affect on it whatsoever,
and this heaven, this brief heaven, is you seating yourself
across from me in another woman’s skin, the two of us
leaning in as if the years had not unpinioned us at all, the
bouquet elegant, persisting, a fragrance fallen and divine.

Joseph Gallo
October 27, 2011