Elevator

The elevator opens to the hotel lobby:
There. The scent that rises above the dry
carpets and clink of piccolo cappuccinos.
Like tearing open a fresh trading card pack.
Heavy as ocean breeze perfume moseying
down a luxury department store aisle.
It’s the scent, you see, of your grandfather
in a private hospital suite with a large TV and a daybed.
You lean in for a kiss on the forehead.
And there — you know what you’re looking for:
the three-day old stubble, yellow cigarette teeth,
the seventy some years of things you will never know.
A war perhaps, but who has time for that—
there is little room for old things, never enough
space for the lost things. You are too busy
scribbling down words by the bay window
overlooking this cool suburban skyline.
Something sad about runaway stars
you hope, but you are too tired. You curl up
like a cat, and stretch out when you realize
you are too old to be seventeen — far too many
lists, bullet points, and too long since
you planted action figures in a cardboard battlefield—
a masterpiece you worked on for hours
and held on so tightly, as you rode down
the elevator from your father’s office all the way
to the parking lot to sit inside the car and wait.