Yours was lilac, though you didn’t wear the scent,
but planted two in the back yard, walked the sloping
grass to sniff them when they bloomed.

Hers was tea—at least to me—she who kept a tea
drawer before I did, who loved good tea from a
Canadian company and had it shipped, along with
the lemon curd she loved.

His was wood shavings from boards hewn in the garage,
the bits clinging to him like fleas that he brought in
the house, where I still sometimes walk in the front door
and smell the shavings of pine and redwood, long gone
but not.

Now and then I smell the dog who died a decade ago
when I walk in, too, though I’ve forgotten so many others,
which reminds me to sniff those I love when I am
in their presence, craft a sense memory, and somehow
embed it in my cells

so that when that scent comes,
when they no longer can,
so will sweet tears,
bringing them back
as a reminder that they’ve
truly never left.