Foreign

Perhaps we have never spoken because
Canadian tongues buck uneasily
around the vowels of your name.

Or does long silence
outweigh deep-eyed glances
tossed through open doorways?

What incense fills your hall,
my mind,
shadows me to class?

A fog of apple and cinnamon
floats heavily, with a trace
of another spice my language
has not yet claimed
and named.

Your scent melts in my mouth,
makes dragon breath in my veins
through fifty minutes
of aromatic hydrocarbons

but I am still waiting
for chemistry to discover your secret,
though my nose found it weeks ago.

I wonder –
If asked, would you give up
the recipe of your scent?
And what would it mean? A map
of a land I have never visited.