SPACE SMELLS LIKE BURNT ALMOND COOKIES by Ellen Kombiyil

for Anousheh Ansari

After you return, you’ll dream weightlessness,
somersaults, the properties of lip gloss
coagulating into round blood balls.

Earth — beautiful, distant — spills open
again and your immediate heart beats
closer to the stars. Remember this night,

your last up there, manufactured air
curling around you like an umbilicus,
the way time in closed loops might forever

circle, and you’ll meet yourself floating in near
dark. For now, forget the sharpness of air.
Come morning, return to the land of smell.

(Originally appeared in Revolution House)

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