PONDEROSA

They say that Ponderosa Pine
smells like Vanilla -

No, not like those Walmart candles
D held with callused paws,
turning them, like a hockey pucks,
then lifting up to smell -
a good gift for his mother, maybe?

Or stocked at Rite Aid, Christmas Eve,
a scabbed man knelt there, bottom shelf,
“Oh these are nice, so nice” he whispered,
while his woman nurse, with hair like crows were lifting it,
hushed his story in the cashier’s ear.

She hid behind her ponytail - the shame of it -
to hear how he’d been smothered, just outside,
because they liked his jacket: Red-gold embroidered
majestic cloak of a Valley angel
waiting for the bus.

You’d never know that was a Ponderosa, unless you knew your trees.
But they are right, the books.
The smell’s so sweet it smokes,
almost too much,
for anything that’s free.