Matthew King

On Sometimes Smelling Smoke

You smell it sometimes when you’ve been away.

There once had been a fire, the neighbours say;

it’s one of many things they’d have you know

you only know because they said so—they

were here; they saw the flashing engines go

around your bend. They heard the sirens slow.

They point out where your window frames are grey.

You wouldn’t find the signs; they hardly show,

except the one the damp brings after rain:

that smell like spirits smokers left behind.

To visitors who notice you explain

you’re used to it, you really can’t complain.

You wonder, though, what else has slipped your mind

that’s seeped so deep and silent in your brain.

Matthew King used to teach philosophy at York University in Toronto, Canada; he now lives in what Al Purdy called "the country north of Belleville", where he tries to grow things, counts birds, takes pictures of flowers with bugs on them, and walks a rope bridge between the neighbouring mountaintops of philosophy and poetry. His photos and links to his poems can be found at birdsandbeesandblooms.com.