Thank goodness for naturalists —
I’d been catching the smell of honeysuckle
within moments of you first kissing me, long and longingly,
bold at the brick face of my building

in broad daylight.

I’d misdefined it: a grape iris smell. Found it on my zebra pattern
sarong and thought it could be your cologne and later explained
it to you as similar in strength-meaning as fresh ballpoint pen ink

but floral.

Then my friend, the painter, asked me to join her on a
peony walk. We stepped into the trees that speak of fairies
and the ghosts of Henry Clay and Gypsy the estate cat
and she mentioned the sweet smell long before we approached
the beds of peonies: honeysuckle

was in bloom.

There I learned that each time, each phantom smell
had not been a clairsentient indication, but still, divine timing,
a sign reminding me of the special iris we found for my great-grandmother
and transplanted from the Grand Valley to the front range of the Rockies,
and dreamingly
some day to my old Kentucky home or, maybe, wherever you
and I might wish
to grow and open year after year. If we are so lucky

to take root.