A small building with a tall slim smokestack sits beside the lake bike path behind it cemetery behind that
prime real estate given over to the business of dying
but for the sign you’d think they were smoking fish
when I ride past on my bike and see the haze above the smokestack I cringe at the idea that I will smell death – inhale it with the fresh autumn air in which everything today feels so alive
but death doesn’t smell
it gives no sign of its presence except for the wisp of warm air I ride through for but an instant
like a hand upon my arm. — Michelle Barker, First published online in Autumn Sky Poetry (www.autumnskypoetry.com) Issue 17
