My Palms Smell of Mint

The first time I grew out my beard, the whiskers flared out a deep reddish hue, almost a burgundy tone. My creative writing instructor told me the hairs appeared as the colors of pine-torched rust— a contradiction to the darker brown filaments on my scalp.

Now my goatee is covered in a frost, a silver coat of first months of winter. Some mornings it surprises me, catches the eye with an unexpected intensity. I forget how time alters the countenance of Self.
• In the last hours of the day, I ripped away excess overgrowth of spearmint from the back fence. Since last year it invades the full perimeter of the garden, an ever-increasing tangle of vines and leaves. Now, even after washing my hands repeatedly, my palms smell of mint, vague notions of a wild tea brewed over summer.

•144/ In twilight, my son’s hair still smells of the sun, a blonde scent of outdoors that retains its presence in every room, in the fashion my brother controlled the spaces between objects— no matter the room he lingers in, an aspect of the sun lingers wherever he wanders.
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