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The Shenandoah/
Glasgow Prize
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SMALL MURDERS
by Aimee Nezhukumatathil
When Cleopatra received Antony on her cedarwood ship,
she made sure he would smell her in advance across the sea:
perfumed sails, nets sagging with rosehips and crocus
draped over her bed, her feet and hands rubbed in almond
oil,
cinnamon and henna. I knew I had you when you told me
you could not live without my scent, bought pink bottles of
it,
creamy lotions, a tiny vial of parfum -- one drop
lasted all day.
They said Napoleon told Josephine not to bathe for two weeks
so he could savor her raw scent, but hardly any mention is
ever
made of their love of violets. Her signature
fragrance: a special blend
of these crushed purple blooms for wrist, cleavage, earlobe.
Some expected to discover a valuable painting inside
the locket around Napoleon's neck when he died, but found
a powder of violet petals from his wife's grave
instead. And just
yesterday, a new boy leaned in close to whisper that he
loved
the smell of my perfume, the one you handpicked years ago.
I could tell he wanted to kiss me, his breath heavy and slow
against my neck. My face lit blue from the movie
screen --
I said nothing, only sat up and stared straight ahead.
But
by evening's end, I let him have it:
twenty-seven kisses
on my neck, twenty-seven small murders of you. And the
count
is correct, I know -- each sweet press one less number to
weigh
heavy in the next boy's cupped hands. Your mark on me
washed
away with each kiss. The last one so cold, so filled
with mist
and tiny daggers, I already smelled blood on my hands.
. . . . . . . .