Poem: Unconnected, Of Course

A poem about seemingly random occurrences and olfactory senses

I passed a guy on the street just now,
who smelled so bad I still have him
under my nose — reminds me of when

my mum would tell the story of how
the people in the local supermarket
would shout the smelly people soap,

only to have them return it and point
out they never bought it. My mum made
it sound like it was a regular occurrence,

but how was it that she happened to be
there every time? And did it even happen
once? I was gonna add, “typical her, on

the soapbox again?!” But that’s even more
on the nose. So I just kept texting back
to a friend about the weird things

we say in public sometimes.
Unconnected,
of course.