Beneath Atlanta, in a dugout
basement, dirt roof
held up by pine timbers,
an old woman places a floodlight
on the packed soil.
In the backlit glow
there are jugs on a shelf.
My husband, she said, seeing my curiosity
would never get rid of these,
just kept stackin’em up down here.
Glass and plastic, some stoppered
with corks, some taped closed,
they seal the forgotten air,
time capsules of smells and breath.
I take ‘em down now and then
to try and catch his scent,
sometimes I think I smell him—
She takes one down and opens it,
One by one, til he’s gone.