Viburnum

Once I smelled it, I had to buy it. Its fragrance took me back twenty-six years to Corfu, where I smelled it the first time. It hung from the pension’s rafters, its white bells hanging like a chupah over our heads, and all the while Paul and I thinking we got away with something because it was October and still warm enough to go swimming. I’ll plant it in the backyard by the deck. It won’t restore me to my nubile young self, a blessing in many ways, but it will certainly cover over the occasional wafts of dog shit.