I can smell her from across the room—
something dark and warm cuts through the smoke,
finds me the way a bloodhound finds a wound,
wraps around my chest and starts to choke.
Not the kind that kills, but the kind that makes you grip
the table edge, swallow hard, pray
she comes closer so the strangling gets worse.
The dying feels too good to walk away.
Trouble wears her perfume like a second skin.
It arrives before she does, lets itself right in,
coils around my ribs, and my lungs forget their trade.
I’m not afraid.
She sat down close. Every inhale changed.
The air was hers now—thick with musk and heat.
I could taste her on the back of my tongue,
a flavor that made every pulse a heartbeat.
Her wrist against my forearm. Pulse to pulse.
The perfume came from somewhere below the lace—
between her breasts, behind her ear,
the hollow of her throat.
Trouble wears her perfume and I’m losing the race.
She left before last call but the scent stayed on my shirt,
on my hands, inside my collar,
underneath my jaw.
I drove home with the windows down.
She was still all over me.
Trouble wears her perfume and I’m coming back for more.