Summery Scents
written by: Michael Ball
@whirred
Anxiety-free summer smells —
baby oil and Coppertone slime.
How amusing that the former
odor is surely more manly.
Clamber up the voyeur’s scaffold
a.k.a. lifeguard stand, to sit,
to see and even to be seen.
Long past, yet scents teleport me.
All of a sudden, I return
and I am back on the tall chair
complete with Acme Thurnderer
on a gimp lanyard hanging down,
ready to blow at miscreant
boys who would dunk sisters’ best friends.
Whiff of that baby oil, its nose
is strawberry Kool-Aid powder
cut with metallic iodine.
Summer aromas kidnap me.
Michael Ball scrambled from daily and weekly papers through business and technical pubs. Satisfaction and feeling like a writer came through blogging and podcasting, mostly political. Born in OK and raised in rural WV, he became more citified in Manhattan and Boston. He joined the Hyde Park Poets Workshop two years ago, and will never again write a manual or help system. He has moderate success placing poems in print and online.
Latest posts by Michael Ball (see all)
- Hallmark Moment - September 10, 2023
- Fully Baked - June 26, 2023
- Separate Strands - March 14, 2023
