Karen Elizabeth Sharpe
A Vestigial Sense
Majority of Kids Would Rather Lose Their Sense of Smell Than Lose Facebook – PC Magazine
Do they think smell
is the province of lesser animals
pigs rooting out truffles
sharks scenting blood
dogs olfactory tracking at a park?
We have spent centuries writing
off Plato’s half formed and Kant’s
most disposable sense
as less than, feeble, insignificant
a vestigial way of knowing, a witchcraft.
Imagine, just as a side effect
of breathing, knowing
this blue sweater has been worn
and this white one hasn’t.
That the petrichored blood of stones
now rising from fresh rain
will tender the lawnmower
perfume of grass and gasoline.
How a sunset alchemized afternoon
can elicit your savory chicken
its sweet and tangy sauce
charring on the grill.
And this too,
how even blindfolded
you can recognize the scent
that love once wore.
Karen Elizabeth Sharpe is from Westminster, Massachusetts. She is a poetry editor at the Worcester Review, and her poems have recently appeared or will appear in West Trade Review, Mom Egg Review, Catalyst, The Mizmor Anthology, Mason Street Review, among others. Sharpe has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and her chapbook, Prayer Can Be Anything, has recently been accepted for publication by Finishing Line Press.