– for e.h.
Suddenly, all at once,
I am remembered
that the rain smells,
we mistook it for bugs coming to their eventual rest
on the windshield.
Or was it actually rocks
who always move & remain in the same place
not speeding, but only now, us
stone serious about headlights
& the ethics of taking public transit.
Sometimes, I can almost feel
the now not-so-old memories
of missing
when the moon succeeded
in Burns’s plan to block out the sun,
the deafening rattle of that August
leaving town, skipping almost across the river
but then, suddenly, burning up
& recalling how to rain.
& sometimes
we hang out so much I can’t smell
her anymore because her smell—
first transposed then diluted—
has become my smell:
so familiar I no longer recognize it.
Cole Mash is a poet, spoken word artist, and writer who lives on unceded Syilx-Okanagan territory in Kelowna, BC. He is the Managing Director of non-profit arts organization Inspired Word Café and of Kelowna Poetry Slam. He teaches sessionally at UBC Okanagan and Okanagan College, and is currently pursuing a PhD at SFU in English. His creative work has been published in Forget Magazine, Eunoia Review, Papershell, and OK Magpie, and his critical work has been published in Scholarly and Research Communication. He is currently working on a manuscript that blends poetry, memoir, and essay entitled What You Did is All It Ever Means, which he hopes to get out to presses soon. He has a wonderful partner, three kids, and two kitties whom he loves all the way to the bottom.
