Ephemera (Buck)/The Perfumes

by Mitchell Starrett Buck

THE PERFUMES

Safe within a box of ebony, I store my perfumes, in vases gold and crimson, in vials of green, pale as the leaves of springtime.

There are glowing syrups, laden with the souls of a thousand roses; cool, green liquids from the soft blooms of the lotos; thin, sterile drops from strange, dark flowers of the night. There is even a perfume which has . . . which never knew the flowers.

But, deep hidden in a secret place, there are two vials—the one of iron, sombre and cold, the other of purest azure, warm and fragile as an unknown thing. And sometimes, when the world is hushed and dark, I bar my doors and . . . later . . . swoon softly in the warm, throbbing silence of my dreams. . . .