<\/p>\n
Please, tell me of the smell of the moon<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n What does it smell like, she asks, when the moon is full?<\/p>\n Do you know first hiss of batter hitting groundnut oil in a shallow pan, I\u00a0\u00a0 ask, on a morning after a long, dream-ridden sleep? The night when you\u00a0 walked through the deserted fairground, where an old man with mustard\u00a0 eyes held aloft tschotskes and trinkets oozing cotton wool from their\u00a0 seams? The smell of the moon is like the echo of your steps walking\u00a0\u00a0 through the sawdust, bouncing off the rusted joints of the big wheel,\u00a0\u00a0 slithering past the machine oil nuts and polished bolts.<\/p>\n I do not know what you mean, she says.<\/p>\n Alright, I say, how about the waterfalls, have you stood behind them? I say,\u00a0\u00a0 There is a form of divination in the ancient Lowlands called taghairm<\/em>. The mystic swaddles himself in the warm, smoking hide of a freshly\u00a0\u00a0 slain ox, he squats behind the waterfall, and he waits for the futurity\u00a0 to arrive. The breeze of the water past his face as he closes his eyes and steams with the fresh blood of the ox\u2014this is almost like the smell\u00a0\u00a0 of the moon when it’s full; it is close.<\/p>\n What? she says.<\/p>\n Like the sharp of the incisor of a Puma, in the English moors, in balmiest May. You are taking a shortcut home from drinking ale by the canalside,\u00a0\u00a0 you are giddy with the prospect of night, and your heels dig into the\u00a0\u00a0 soft mud. You stumble, and something dashes past you, I say (my breath\u00a0\u00a0 quickens), you stumble and it turns and its teeth glint in the\u00a0\u00a0 night\u2014that, that is the smell of the fullest moon.<\/p>\n Listen, she says, these are not smells. You are not telling me the answer to what I am asking, she says.<\/p>\n She is angry.<\/p>\n I move my arm on the bed and rub my claws into the back of her hair, and I\u00a0\u00a0 purr quietly. I try to purr with the same frequency of a cat, the same\u00a0\u00a0 frequency as ultrasound; I try to purr with the frequency to heal all\u00a0\u00a0 traumas.<\/p>\n Her body quivers. She turns her face so I do not see the tears bead. Every time she turns her face.<\/p>\n Listen, I say, I don’t need to tell you of the smell of the moon\u2014come on.<\/p>\n I pull her to the door and out into a night too early to be spring. I\u00a0\u00a0 point to a sky that is ridden with clouds. I point behind the clouds to constellations, to Virgo leaping upon a dolphin, to bows and to secret\u00a0\u00a0 arrows in ancient galaxies obscured by mist.<\/p>\n Look, I say; sniff, I say; it is here, I say. It is already upon us.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Jane Flett<\/strong> is a philosopher, cellist, and seamstress of most fetching stories. Her first poetry book, Quick, to the Hothouse<\/em>, is now available from dancing girl press and recent fiction has appeared on wigleaf, Bartleby Snopes and BBC Radio 4. Find out more at\u00a0http:\/\/janeflett.com.\/<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Please, tell me of the smell of the moon What does it smell like, she asks, when the moon is full? Do you know first hiss of batter hitting groundnut oil in a shallow pan, I\u00a0\u00a0 ask, on a morning after a long, dream-ridden sleep? The night when you\u00a0 walked through the deserted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2791"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2791\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2797,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2791\/revisions\/2797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}