it smells too clean here
take me to a home
somewhere where the earth
wears the scent
of my grandmothers' placentas

and wayward dogs
and yowling cats
are showering in exhaust

and love made out of nothing
fries over open fires

where music is perfume
with the musk of hibiscus
swelling in its loins

and the sun bakes stories
from the culverts
with the whispers of
the subterranean secrets
of the fermenting underground

and histories chatter
in the bare feet
of the boys who dance
with balls worn to the rough
like their future hearts
driven forever toward
their glory

let me smell the garbage
and love it too
as the sacrifice of sustenance
and memory

give me mangoes
and red earth

and sweat that glistens
beneath the stars

and oceans
that spray the sidewalk
with the temptation
of the adventures that it holds

let my heart not be so sanitized
as this world that carries
the void of poetry
in the lack of its cologne