So I must have loved the smell of you Emma Gray

Emma Gray

that high-bird night on Calton Hill when the wind looted our words so we perched close, you becoming my air -

for how your braid would breathe into the fibrous root of itself the tracing of days; guitar strings, tobacco, onions frying whilst you danced,

would snake to sup our heat. I joked I’d know if you were cheating that you’d buy shampoo, cut your hair executive-short,

but the end, no Event, just that unparticular morning waking to hate your smell as if something between us had rotted, made us sick.