AA Meeting (ROUND 5)
scent of the day: Cuir de Russie 2, by Areej
Opens with a distinctive leather character—raw (beavertail plus smoky birch) giving way to powdery posh (ozonic violet and fuzzy musk). great, very much like Classica: both powdery leather but classica has more of a doughy vibe from heliotrope. Classica seems better both subjectively and objectively /ashen wood and florals over leather. Both have an intriguing juxtaposition between the rugged leather and delicate florals that even, because of lotus, go in marine direction The drydown settles into a powdery-musky-leathery base where the vintage deer musk (not a star, integrated) takes center stage alongside quiet smoky incense and lingering florals.
AA Meeting
That hand kept fidgeting metallic ratatats
too broken, too shifty in accent, to stand—
let alone to grab onto any pattern beyond
brainstem wall scrabblings of bounty rats
in a drown barrel (sun shut by a rusty lid).
Knuckle staccato needled the entire church
basement—tinnitus tinsel. I scowled left—
a plea, now open, deflected by desolation.
For me it had been merely sober day seven. And my own hand darted out—whacko rudiments stilled against the chair. Eyes in our circle converged on the touch— perfect excuse to slink home, to mainline oblivion. Yet it did not slump. Nor did it tear free. It held my own the full session— faithful. And I spoke for the first time.
* “AA Meeting” originally appeared in Right Hand Pointing 125 (2018)
* “AA Meeting” also appeared in SISYPHUS 8.2 (2021)
