It smells like home. She said, dying. And I, What’s that you smell, V. And V, dying: The faint cut of walnuts in the grass. My husband’s work shirt on the railing. The pulled-barbecued evening. The turned dirt. Even in this pitch I can see the vapor-lit pole, the crape myrtle not in shadow. My sweet-betsy. That exact streaked sky. The mongrel dog being pelted with rain. Mine eyes pelted. All fear. Overcome. At last. No scent. That’s what she said. Dying in the one room apartment in Hell’s Kitchen.
Excerpted from One With Others: A Little Book of Her Days by C. D. Wright. Copyright © 2010 by C. D. Wright. Reprinted with permission of the publisher, Copper Canyon Press.