LONG AND ROUGH (is how i like my poems)

Jessica's breads in a tin foil bundle,
the banana candy insides, all wafting upwards -
Do smells disappear?
Do they land on the shoulders of boys,
who carry them so far as the swimming pool,
and later, so far as the locker room shower,
and still later, to the ocean's edge.

Or do they separate and fade, like couples,
continents, the words of a poem.
If so, then, where are their graves?
My grandfather's cigarette train,
my sister's vanilla garden,
Cara's basketball sweat embrace,
where do they fall, where can I go to visit them,
with flowers and stones?

----

**and then maybe this additional bit:

I remember the passenger seat of our dust blue Nissan,
the straps pulling at my neck when I'd ask
my driving mother to please explain the science in everything.

Do smells disappear?

She told me to keep a notebook of questions.

**and somehow get to:

Many poems are only questions,
many words separate and fade,
many words stick to the pockets of my jeans
through the laundry, through the walking of three days,
and rediscovered..

**what?