Regular Poem: Springtime Smell

When your hair feels dirty but it isn’t dirty
or when your hair is dirty but doesn’t feel dirty
or when your hair looks dirty but could be quite dirtier
and you can smell your own strange salty smokey smell
like a small cloud of a warm moist you
that smells like your hair but not exactly
and you wonder if everyone can smell it too and wonder
if everyone can identify the precise dirtiness of your hair

that’s how you know it’s really truly springtime
because it’s a time that is perpetually paradoxically
both wet and dry
dirty and clean
and you feel so moist all the time
but also your hair is dry and gritty feeling
and that smell might not even be you
but a smell in the air
because it’s kind of an outside smell
a dirt smell (not dirty but dirt)
a pollen smell
an earthworms smell
a breeze over a man-made lake smell
a smell that’s a nature smell
but is kind of gross, too
and kind of wet and kind of dry
and clammy
and half-sunburned
and salty and sour
but also fresh and natural.
And it’s springtime.