The Cities

I have walked these cities at different times in my life, and I remember each one by its smell before I remember anything else. Market fruit in Barcelona at eight in the morning. Sesame and salt in Tel Aviv. Rain on hot brick in Melbourne. Jasmine somewhere above a Los Angeles parking lot. And Baltimore.

I do not write the scents in a lab. I write them from memory, working from what a place smelled like on an ordinary day.