My roommate cooks ground beef in a pan

and suddenly I am homesick

for the first time since the dogwoods

in April when Sara said springtime

happens here in slow motion.

On La Salle someone leaves behind

a silhouette of perfume for me to encounter

in the elevator and I thereby come to know

what it is to rest in the crook of their arm. I recall

how on Albemarle the afternoon laundry scent of strangers

collects in invisible clouds in the street, betraying

what it is to sleep in that stranger’s bed at night.

I purchase a yellowing book from the Strand

whose insides smell like soy sauce

having absorbed the byproducts of cooking, of human living

into its fibers, into its spine, and I recall

how my notebook pages stick together in summer,

grow plump and damp with humidity

so that ink runs like street lights in the rain,

and too-firm pencils might tear the crumbling paper.

Here, a wandering whiff of cigarette.

Now, an applause of June thunder.

Somewhere, a G chord in a window.

Somewhere, a toilet flush at midnight.

Giselle Silla (she/her) is a sophomore at Barnard College majoring in Urban Studies and minoring in German.