Recalling the smell of laughter

A faint scent lingers in the creases of my palms when you leave

Something like young coconut and the tinge of oily sweat just

Dripping down the tips of thick brows. It smells like eyes just grazing

Over each other before falling down to worn miss-matched socks

Before the smell is rubbed off by dish soap, hot water,

And porcelain scrubbing off the day’s light caresses, 

I anoint myself in it, blessing my filtrum with remnants of 

Your heaving laughter, how the exhaustion of your lungs

Caused you to sweat, those bits of your joyousness engraving 

Themselves in the fortuned lines of my palms when I held your

Face earlier in the evening. I mirror my hands into my face hoping 

The smell might stay: not in my hands but in my recollections 

So when I forget what we laughed so heavily at, I will remember

We laughed. I will remember the sloppy whiff of your coconut Vaseline

Far before I remember any joke we’ve made, 

because nothing has stained my memory quite like your smell before.