Your Little Boy
By Patricia Russo
May 5, 2025
May 5, 2025
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Your little boy said
he didn’t like how flowers smelled so we took him to the herb garden and let him pick basil, and lemon balm, and thyme Afterwards he wouldn’t wash his hands until you made him a sachet of older, dried gatherings to hold, and sniff, and rub against his cheek The winter that he stayed the year after you had gone he showed it to me, small in his hand, with no scent left We can fill it again, I told him Unstitch it and repack it The jars in the kitchen are still almost full But he said, No I want this memory to stay the way it is revisited, but unrevised And you’re wrong there is some scent, see? He touched it to my cheek and it was true Though I could smell more strongly the fust wrapped around the herbs But knowing it would hurt him if I said that I smiled and squeezed his hand No Ship of Theseus for him, then but in the garden, in the summer, is where I remember the both of you best among the new plants as well as the old. |
Patricia Russo’s work has appeared in One Art, The Sunlight Press, Vagabond City, Hex Literary, Crow and Cross Keys, Waffle Fried, and Revolution John.