the cars

There are moments when, above the exhaust or the rubber or metallic smell, you catch the scent of the person inside the passing car. A lei or a pine tree dangle from the rearview mirror. Magnetic Jesus clings to the dashboard. Over all of these things, like a dusty halo, you smell the mothballs that line the corner of their closet. Or the skin behind their ear, stained with freesia or gardenia or, God forbid lavender (you've always been allergic). Or the three cats with one little box changed not too regularly that are waiting by the door of their home. Or the empty fillet of fish sandwiches filling the passenger seat, where you know no one else sits. Or the stale baby spit-up stuck in the crevices of the seat belt buckles.

They pass, and as your head turns to follow them and for just that part of one second when they glance at you because you are, after all, on their side of the road, you know them. You know all there is to know about them. They pass through you and you wonder what they took.

And when they are gone, you smell the collar of your coat, the inside of your glove that rubs against your palm, and on top of their sent that still lines your nostrils, you look for yourself again. You mix the two. You know yourself, all there is to know.