Leaving

Fresh paint in the air
when I walk to the bus
a chinatown lamp post now
fire engine red
but I close my eyes
to the color.....inhale instead
wishing for some way
to photograph smells.....to store them:
tiny vials in precarious stacks
which would line the crevices
of the mind

then......when
I'm gone and aching
for this street
I could shut myself up
in the bathroom.....lights off
where vision is only peripheral
to the processes of recollection
pry the tops off
wait for the senses to blur and
bleed together like watercolors
and watch as the odors of oil and varnish
bloom across the insides of my eyelids
in hot crimson swatches