Standing in the cold, city rain, she would catch the sudden
Spice-laden fragrance of the fields.
Merely a trick,
Yet she would tilt her head to the sky,
Umbrella drooping to brush the asphalt,
Remembering the wild, monsoon rains.
She still snaps out the heavy wet clothing
And fastens it on the line,
Neighbors staring at the open wardrobe dancing in her yard.
But she knows the magic scent of sun-dried sheets.
She remembers the rough hands that carefully folded them
While she twined around those still hanging as tents.
She cradles carefully the orange, before ripping it apart,
Still feeling the sting of too many peelings
Underneath her fingernails.
Once her hands bled from the pruning of the trees
Until the stickiness of fruit and blood and sweat
Brought the flies.
Even them she would miss,
For that was when things were real.
Just once -
She would like once more to live
Under the scent of the monsoon rains.
The crowd eddies around her.
Bending down,
She lifts her umbrella,
Shutting out the deluge of longing
With a safe layer of pattering plastic,
And shuffles again along the steaming asphalt.