Sometimes I don’t want to go see my mother.
I want to stay home and mop floors,
clean out cabinets, and wear a facial masque.
I want to organize the refrigerator:
bird suet in one corner, cheese in another.

Once, rustling through the vegetable bin,
I found perfume in a zippered pink heart,
a vial of my mother’s favorite, her very best,
something she gave me when she cleaned house
for once and for all, shedding herself of her past.

I’d forgotten about Paris, a perfect perfume,
the odor of roses and sandalwood kissing oranges
with undertones of moss and amber and laughter.
This was my mother’s scent, the scent of a woman
who was not incontinent and who liked to dance.

It was the scent of evenings at the American Legion
with my father, when my parents could stand up.

I unzipped the bag and sprayed some on my wrist,
wearing perfume through the house as I pushed a broom
through a dust that accumulates when you’re busy—
too busy to notice how tired you are of feeling sad.