Clarice Hare

I Waste My Late Great-Grandmother’s Shalimar on an Eighth-Grade Valentine’s Dance

I squeeze the silk-sheathed bulb,
and breathe associations—

lissomeness. chianti. muguet.
cinque vapori. umber musk.
myrrh. cypress. woodsmoke.
parfumista pastilles. scarabs
on beds of velvet. chocolate
almonds. forbidden
biscotti in archives
redolent of medieval
lignocellulose. night-blooming
cereus. papyrus. jungle
candy. Tuscan crypts.
Kashmiri orchards

—many of which
I cannot yet name.

The very voice of the Baccarat bottle
has been stampeded into each
of its varietals; though near-
denatured, such ecstatic motion
has toppled the subdued profusion of
quietude, while the shudder of voltaic
affectation still makes a century-old French ass
shake its ears and the liliform bells
on its harness and plod to creaking work
in its tropical cradle, and all its attendant oils
quiver with an exultant coo.

Conjuring fortune’s aspirations,
trembling in a cloud of Goodwill tulle
and reanimated opopanax, I throw myself
upon the judgment of
the one Honors boy who dares
to wear pink—though not to touch
my sweating hands as he positions his feet
for a slow dance to NSYNC:
glasses opaque with tinsel glints,
almost-cute nose wrinkled
like my spoiled guinea pig’s—
“You stink.”