Synecdoche

New cars have a new-car smell.
Does a couch have a new-couch smell?
Or maybe a new-couch sound?
How about new dishes? A new-dish smell?

When a car is no longer new
where does the smell go?
It must go somewhere,
because it doesn’t just change:
there is no old-car smell.

Maybe it just gets mixed in
with the cheerios and shin-guards
and backpacks and keys and dates
and friends and groceries.
New-car smell is the smell of life
before it happens.

Going home after a long trip,
you leave behind the smell of used-car,
the smell of life in transit,
for the smell of life being lived,
the smell of home.

Nov 13, 2008