Anosmiac

it is said the animals trace life by scent…
purple clots smeared on the sanitation napkin reek of iron—
portents of industrial babies, spitting up smile-shaped blood,    
sickles, acid teething away the moon to marrow crescent.
toddlers sharpen their gnaw on puppy breath fumes
spiraling up in red smokestack tunnels
seducing unsuspecting adults by breathing on them,
dirty cupids.
elementary school students smell sick days, proven
vomit on waxed desks, polarizing into the gag finger, pointing—
portent of teenage bulimia, singed fur throats.

parents teach the ways of electricity, the fan, the potpourri—
any excretion is a sickness to be aired out, exorcised
corner your smells in some private sex closet,

formaldehyde your dead in metal cubbyholes—
permanent prisons, foretold.
never strain your neck to smell the mausoleum yet unsealed—