Here at home,
I bury my nose in the itchy cardigan
because it costs nothing to smell.
To smell green. How green?
As green as the Aer Lingus billboard,
from Hartford to Donegal, it says,
I see it on my way to work, on the highway,
calling me
from my green to that green,
to smell sheep,
to smell meadow
to smell peat. Is it peat, I smell?
I bury my nose in the wool,
who wouldn’t? Baa, baa,
somewhere a sheep with a brogue
calls me, baa baa,
It cost nothing to smell.
Gabriella Brand’s work has appeared in such publications as Comstock Review, Echoes, Citron Review, Room Magazine (Canada) and Shiuli (India). She is a Pushcart Prize nominee. An active outdoorsperson, Gabriella teaches in the OLLI program at the University of Connecticut. Her website is gabriellabrand.net