Mothering by Scent

Bring me the bedding that held his sleep
and blind I’d know it as his.
Pungent smell with an acrid edge,
like delicious food just starting to turn.
Since infancy, his skin was a sponge–
milk-sweet meant he’d eaten fruit,
face powder scent, he’d been in his Grandma’s arms.
Now cold cheeks smelling of sun,
a game of chase in the school yard.
And fever–
it’s there in the doorway,
sourdough bread and the oven on all afternoon.
He scolded me once at eighteen months,
“I am not a flower!”
First metaphor, I’d write in his baby book
after just one more breath of my boy.