The Smell That Stays

It stays in the carpet. It stays in the wood.
The smell of the decomposition stood
its ground against the bleach, the enzyme cleaners,
the ozone machines and the professional demeanors
of the crime scene crew who told me they could get it out.

But the smell that stays is the smell of doubt
that anything is ever truly clean once the body
has leaked its contents through the hotly
contested territory of the living room floor.

I can taste it on the air when the humidity is high,
the sweet corruption rising from beneath the alibi
of the renovation, the new paint, the new hardwood.
And the smell that stays lives in the neighborhood.

Maybe the actual molecule embedded in the beam
of the joists that soaked the fluid up, absorbed the extreme
concentration of the human rendered liquid by the heat.
And the smell that stays has outlasted every cleaning feat.

I sold the house. The new owners called me twice.
The smell came back in summer with the warmth and the precise
efficiency of the decomposition that occurred
in the living room where the body went unheard.

The smell that stays after everything is scrubbed,
the smell that stays after the carpet has been rubbed
raw and replaced and the subfloor treated twice.
The smell that stays does not care about the price.

Three owners later.
They all call.
The same complaint.
The house remembers.
The wood remembers.
The smell remembers.