The yellowwood blossoms have lost this vaguely citrus scent
and graupeln the grass. Some drift across the driveway’s black
river and arrange—yes, flowers arranging themselves—into
bars of white crisps. And they will not melt in the first warm
snap of May, and that is why I prize them amid the complement
of the cicadas, their chirring strangely making for this
bracing air as I scoop up a handful of yellowwood blossoms
to spruce up a tired bowlful of potpourri. Once it looked and
smelled nice new in the cellophane bag. The pinecones, cinnamon
sticks, the dried rosebuds, the waterlily pods going
dot-dot-dot for all the rest are so dusty. Tossing them (just
like a salad, that’s all you do) only freshens the colors so long
and teases a few death rattles out of their faded glory. My
mother would spray a little furniture polish, pour some bay
rum, and tap out some tinned cinnamon to help her bowl
when company was coming. But any potpourri recipe devolves
into an odorless still-life of itself, a pose that promises
to smell like heaven, like the May snow if you open the window
on an unrelenting choir, the way it frisks in the treetops,
like a swarm of black flies, red-eyed over its meat, holding an
almost human word, cold, holding it up to its highest note.