Canobie Lake
In my mind the pungency of juniper
mingles inextricably with the hot acrid smell of asphalt
in the noon of a late summer day,
breathed in like a drug
as I climbed out of the car.
Closer to the music,
a sharp sweet scent of cedar mulch
and a floral gloss of petunias,
typical corporate blossoms,
rose up in the heat.
The stench of chlorine and the breath of stagnant water,
the odd whiff of wet spandex,
blew over me from the swimming pool
where I had never been,
only glimpsed through the fence
and from high above, perched on the ferris wheel
where the air was clear and pine-scented.
Smells of tar and overheated iron,
of spun sugar that coats the back of the throat with sweetness,
of things frying somewhere, savory and overpriced,
of wet paint splattered in starbursts.
In the coolness of evening,
the darkness shimmers with colored light
cast by marquees, spilled from kiosks,
worn around the necks and wrists of teenagers,
and an aura of cooling sweat and wilting flowers.
The reek of juniper lent mystery
even to our departure.