She Smells the Rain

She Smells the Rain          

She smells the rain on me again, behind

the still warm stove. I have brought winter, though,

in to her. My eyes full of the loose robe

that all the dark way here, through the long climb,

I have imagined - using the dark pine

for cover. The fragrance of her soap I know

and wanted all the evening down the slow

back roads of trying to recall the time

a year ago, when my feet crunched the gravel

drive, by the broken swing, where a car that drove

past, turned. Her first words then were of the rain

upon my coat, and mine, the pine, the soapy smell

of her loose robe, laid by the still warm stove

for us. She smells the rain on me again.