Prathap Kamath writes

When you visit a poet’s tomb

When you visit a poet’s tomb
you should have a clear nose
for the smells there are his smells.

The monument raised over it
with high phallic pillars
surrounded by lawns made of imported grass,
the fountain that fails to spurt
when the power goes off now and again,
the algae speckled pool, guppies musing in it
in suspended animation over the sky,
or the garden of roses in moss covered flower pots
and the little hedge around it
would never tell you a thing about
the guy lying underground.

But if you close your eyes and inhale deep
you would get the smell of his booze
or his cigarette smoke or, rarely, the smell of the soul
he had always denied to possess.

And if you have what he was fond
of calling “the inner ear”
have it unwaxed and cleaned
for he might be waiting just for you
to speak about things that only he could
from where he now is,
so you don’t miss a breath of it.

Buried Song -- Brenda Goodman