Love is a Terrible Smell

Love is a terrible smell,

dreaming war with dead-fish swords

 on a garbage fire backdrop

only to awaken to a lover’s warm breath,

 gently peeling back the layers

of your eyelids and making you realize

 that you used to have nose hairs

And when you kiss those chapped lips,

images of medieval brutality linger only momentarily before you turn over to a puddle of semi-warm drool,

on your side of the pillow

There are no thoughts of the beginning,

with moon and stars and other clichés dangling in your lover’s eyes,

or toward the end, also a gas seeping toward the making of a country song

Love is a terrible smell,

for nobody ever doubts the actions of Lovers,

playfully moving the toilet paper from its customary spot above the tank,

laughing as the window locks force obligations for air and retribution,

 and patiently removing the bits of food and alcohol from first the tear-stained face and then the tear-stained toilet.

A city of dirty laundry a mile high and a million fathoms long

are where lovers sing the song of their chief olfactory deity,

until each hymn becomes a chant

 to the true grace of our senses