Clove

She’s old now, a half a century buried in her book.

It’s been so long since she’s been out and this is a new town.

Older than her, by centuries, and tonight had been a long time coming.

Picking out a black dress, pulling on opaque matching tights, she hangs skulls from her ears and zips up black leather boots.

Her husband surprised her with a gift, one that promised to send her back in time. It comes in a box built of black, the contents require fire to ignite.

Dancing is the reason for this evening, to old songs that make her feel young again. Some of those out with her are young enough to be her children, though she never had any.

Vodka on the rocks will provide the courage needed to move freely among those swaying to a soundtrack that her life was built on.

And pulling out her black box, with her black cigarettes, she smells fall and clove, and memories waiting to be emblazoned.

Inhaling it brings vivid movies, crackling into focus, a night on a bridge over black water, laughing and feeling like everything at daybreak was possible.

She shares them with her old heads, and the circle closes completely. Each of them traveling through the smoke sucked into their lungs and exhaled into this night.

It broke her out of slumber, each half of her living in two worlds, the one she is realizing, and the one she remembers.