Author Information
"For Some People Things Happen Aromatically"
by Jeph Johnson
She's gloriously
decorating
this always open
coffee shop
with her bouquet.
Her nose buried
in a book,
patently oblivious
to odor.
His smell drifts
above my 'stache
where my bagel
crumbs reside
and permeates each
stale thought I write.
I can only detect him
from the periphery
at the next table
playing his video game
on his phone.
She's sitting
across from him,
unfazed by his stench.
A stank that makes
blatantly obvious
his presence
to me.
Under the table
one lone stilleto
lies on its side.
Her achilles
tendon seduces
his denim clad leg,
sliding her sleek hose
across his thin shin skin.
Toes tickling
ankle hairs;
her headphones blaring
something about
how men
just don't
understand.
But I do
and
neither do you.
From the stilleto on its side
From the stilleto on its side to the toes' tickle on the ankle---this is one of the finest seduction scenes I have ever read in a poem, a huge amount of verbal power in those few lines.
Starward