The Smell of Paint

Proust wafted to art

On the smell of madeleines.

The elegance of soft sugar and tangy lemon

Moved him to words.

Why does the drying of linseed oil

Move me to cross old boards

To an unsullied canvas?

There is nothing soft in paint,

Only the itching of memories

Of other light-filled spaces

With wooden floors and white walls

Stained by youth's belief that

Everything it had to give was new.