It's Still Life

Past Scents

That’s me and Mum in that photo.
Mum always said that I smelled
like warm strawberry fields.

I’d stick dandelions in my hair.
It was like wearing a canary.
Made me chirpy, and all flighty.

All that chirping drove Mum mad.

And when I said, No, I didn’t
eat all the cookies, she sent me
to my room to think about it,

so I read a book three times,
same book, my only book.

I liked hooking my toes into
the maroon-twist shag carpet.
It smelled of foot powder and

Clove Gum, and someone else’s
wet dog. We didn’t have a dog.

 
 

 
 
4b 11 June as I can’t do the 12 June prompt. Image is by Elsa Haensgen-Dingkuhn, self-portrait with her son. 1928 poem ©️ Misky 2020. [ps: I’m mistaken. I can do the 12 June prompt.]