Will Walker

Ode to My Nose

It gets into everything, except my dreams.

I open my eyes and there it is,

uninvited but always visible, too close

to be in focus, a fleshy bump

on either side of center.

Look left, and there it sits,

and right, the same, my own pink piece

of Mt. Rushmore, lending itself twice

to whatever I see.

It’s that generous, and yet it’s

so much more: avid sniffer

of morning coffee, lavender, jasmine,

a regular aesthete, refined reporter

of the atmosphere, whether moldy or clean,

and midnight’s sleuth assessing the stale

beer smell hovering before the local bar.

And then there’s just the simplest use,

my nose doing its best to keep me

from the ranks of slack-jawed mouth breathers.

And not last, something to look down along

when necessary, a calibrator

of immorality and bad manners,

to say nothing of insufficient

talent. Feeling refined, I look down my nose

and sniff, condescending,

hoping I’m not catching something

contagious. And then

there’s the unfortunate runny function,

either illness or grief,

a head stopped up with the stuff

that reminds me it’s messy to be human,

and not to take breathing for granted.

WILL WALKER lives in San Francisco with his wife and their dog. He is a former editor of the Haight Ashbury Literary Journal. He has published in various journals and magazines. His book Wednesday after Lunch is the winner of the Blue Light Press 2008 Book Award. As a footnote to literary history, he once had pizza with J. D.