Diana Rosen

The scent of a woman lingers

in her kitchen like her signature
sauce simmering until it steams the
windows on a damp autumn day;
in her children’s bedrooms like her
reading voice or memories of tender
kisses planted on pretending-to-sleep faces.

The scent of a woman lingers
everywhere her husband turns,
family photos, the too-big-now bed,
her hairbrush abandoned on the bureau.

—First appeared in Lucidity Poetry Journal

CP

Diana Rosen's poetry has appeared in the anthologies Kiss Me Goodnight, Those Who Can....Teach, and Bold Ink plus the journals convolvulus and RATTLE, among others.