From Count Syllables on Your Fingers, the collection published in 2020.
Shadorma 254
Blistered heel
new job first day and
brand new shoes
slide up and
down each step
just like my heart in my chest
up down with each breath.
12/5/19
Shadorma 255
in the air
floats a hot fried smell
Headturning
nose-twitching
lead-me-to-it delicious
Could it be French fries?
12/12/19
Shadorma 256
Relinquish
the steering wheel and
abandon your
objections
to the route I take. Got it?
So we’re clear. Let’s go.
12/12/19
Your final poem reminds me very much of one particular backseat driver who drives me (pun intended) around the twist with their unhelpful and often irrelevant and ill-informed suggestions about my route and driving. The middle poem makes me think of the smell of chips wafting out of a British fish and chip shop, the heady mixture of hot fat on steaming potatoes sprinkled with salt and doused in evaporating clouds of vinegar and my goodness does that smell memory make me a bit homesick.
I have also had my issues with backseat driving. From someone who did not even drive at the time. And as far as the French fry smell, I think of summers at the pool, either when I was there as a swimmer or else when I worked there as a lifeguard, with that wonderful smell from the concession stand…