In Praise of Our Bouquet

May our houses smell

of living!

Caramelized onions!

Roasted garlic, salmon!

Perfect pungence!

Sweet funk of dogs

and the marriage bed!

Sheets ripe

with salt, sleep and love

that does not succumb!

No! Not

to the perfumed

ravages of a rotting age!

Not

to Tide!

Anxious tidiness!

Unwashed until we must

march into the fray!

Rise above the chemical

Dawn!

Rise, lift the blinds!

Let in the sun—

Light, our housekeeper!

Nose, meticulous historian

of home!

All praise the precious bouquet

of the holy family

biome!