Sleep-Smell by Sharmila Ray

The smell of your sleep fell upon my words
winding through kiosks and summer lanes.
It brushed over my sleep-languid lashes,
travelled with me
and rested on the kitchen table.

All day long the kitchen smelt of your sleep
turning radishes into white cedar javelins
and carrots, carnelians, the size of your thumb.
The smell bleeding and peeling, falling like
rain, like flakes on the kitchen floor
wove stories of Illiad
stretching and interlacing with noon.

All day your sleep-smell smeared the air
then in a moment of tenderness
gushed out of the kitchen window
leaving behind traces of unheard — of lanes.