Two Poems by Hayden Saunier

Something Is Not Right

My neighbors never turn off the light
in an upstairs room, so one eye
seems always open in the face of that house
which is how ducks sleep, and dolphins,
and wary parents of teenagers, like my sister,
who woke one night as certain of catastrophe
as the French nurse in a children’s book,
so she drove in her robe and nightgown to the house
where her daughter was sleeping over
in time to watch four girls crawl out a bedroom window,
drop to the ground and head toward town.
She stepped from her car, called their names
in the ragged-whispered voice of conscience,
watched them scramble back inside the house.
That’s the god we were taught we had.
God of highway guardrails
and get-your-butt-back-in-that-house.
God of adults not too drunk or damaged
to keep us safe. A clear-eyed god, unmoved
by megachurch money and gold filigree.
God as shepherd, like my sister, standing
under bright stars in a dark world,
nightgown hitched up in a robe sash, boots on,
ready to chase the young ones back to the fold,
away from the wolves, at least for that night.

*

Perfume Notes

An overwhelming waft of fake peachiness
stings my eyes from a bar of discounted soap

and it’s almost as awful as the sugary pink
aroma of Summer’s Eve strawberry douche

that stunk up the family bathroom
at an inlaw’s house— good god, decades ago—

and because memory mainlines scent,
every dissonance I ever ignored for love

comes back to me. I was young.
It takes time to trust your nose.

I dump the soap in a corner of the dirt cellar
to ward off mice, and I’m further back,

age six, in Erica’s damp brick basement,
concocting a magic fragrance from her perfume kit

that turned the gray world Technicolor
but I spilled the entire vial and never could

remake that mix. I pause halfway up
the outside steps and linger in the rich bouquet

of earth, cool bottom note to all our lives.
To this, I’d add dark roasted coffee, drying hay,

the spicy sweetness of mock orange in the air,
atomized atop the mammal musk of skin.

It’s taken years to know what scents to trust.
I douse my life with them.

*

Hayden Saunier is the author of six poetry collections, including her most recent book Wheel. Her work has been awarded a Pushcart Prize, Nimrod International’s Pablo Neruda Prize, the Rattle Poetry Prize, and Gell Poetry prize, and has been published in ONE ART, The Sun, 32 Poems, Shenandoah, Virginia Quarterly Review, and featured on Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, and The Writer’s Almanac. Hayden founded and directs the interactive poetry performance group No River Twice. More at haydensaunier.com.