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Poem for a Man with No Sense of Smell by Kate Clanchy

By T.

31 August 2007

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Poem for a Man with No Sense of Smell
Kate Clanchy

This is simply to inform you:

that the thickest line in the kink of my hand
smells like the feel of an old school desk,
the deep carved names worn sleek with sweat;

that beneath the spray of my expensive scent
my armpits sound a bass note strong
as the boom of a palm on a kettle drum;

that the wet flush of my fear is sharp
as the taste of an iron pipe, midwinter,
on a child’s hot tongue; and that sometimes,

in a breeze, the delicate hairs on the nape
of my neck, just where you might bend
your head, might hesitate and brush your lips,

hold a scent frail and precise as a fleet
of tiny origami ships, just setting out to sea.

MARGINALIA

And it isn’t easy, you know, to not think. To not think of you. And of course, the proverbial what-might-have-been. This is the year we were supposed to get married, or have you forgotten. But of course you did. Of course you did.

ABOUT KATE CLANCHY

Kate Clanchy was born in Glasgow and educated in Edinburgh and Oxford. After working for several years as a teacher in London’s East End, she moved to Oxford. She has been a teacher in state schools for nearly 30 years, and is currently Writer in Residence at the comprehensive school Oxford Spires Academy, where she has nurtured creative talent among the pupils, many of whom have come to the UK as refugees. An anthology of the pupils’ poetry, England: Poems from a School was published… (more)

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