when i would smell u on me

when i would smell you on me like
yesterday in the morning, this
memory, morning, of that night
in bed together, just together

it’s got nothing to do whiff language,
the mnemonic balm of being in place
but it freaks, causes, compels

us, in a certain sense, like language
like the word ‘door’ or ‘floor’ or
‘polysyndeton’ all trans-historical
trans-spatial in the all-floor of located
being
               the always already
liminality of the thresh

the eternal ethereality of thangs thanging
is this the poem is

sniff.

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Jameel Finch-Martin is an accomplished poet, scholar, and musician. He completed his pre-college and undergraduate studies in music at The Juilliard School, and received his MFA in poetry from Brooklyn College, where he is an adjunct professor of english composition and was editor-in-chief/poetry editor of The Brooklyn Review. He is currently pursuing an MA in performance studies at NYU Tisch School of the Arts. Jameel’s poetry, criticism, and interviews can be found in A Common Well Journal, Archway Editions Journal, and The Brooklyn Review. He is the founding violist of the Renaissance String Quartet, alongside violinists Randall Goosby and Jeremiah Blacklow, and cellist Daniel Hass..