Lilac

One look at the lilac, one smell

and my childhood is — 

dogs scratching at the sliding

glass door, bits

of bottles coming up

like grass in the grass, a dirty towel

down by the feet

of the tree, Lysol cans, small

packets of Land O’Frost

turkey meat — 

there in front of me in spring,

in the wonderfully fat rain,

flowering purple and whatever

the pinkish purple is called

and the white

ones too. They smell like

my siblings, like the backs of my infant

son’s ears, like my son

whom I would kill someone for.

Before he was born I wouldn’t kill

anyone. But now I would.

And after I’d get a coffee

from Starbucks, a coffee and a piece

of that amazing lemon-frosted

lemon cake

and think nothing of it,

and read the paper and hold him

against my chest

and listen to his body living,

alive outside

his mother’s body, and the lilac

outside on the street, outside

everyone, and heavy in the rain.