Aroma of Yesterday

They took me to
Her
The lady in the
Village
And laid me on her
Table
Naked child
I was
As she forced my arms and legs
To meet
And rubbed me with olive oil and garlic
While she chanted in Italian
Frightening the demons that lived in my body
Away
To a place she invented
She prayed over me
Making the sign of the cross
And when she was through
She guaranteed my health
And they
Took me back home
Happy and convinced of her
Powers
I can still see
That table and her toothless smile
And now when I emerge from the
Shower
Lathering myself with the creamy white
Lotion
That smells of June berries
I inhale its aroma
Remembering the clove from which
I came
And the smell of my ancestry
That still lives in
Me

Marianne LaValle-Vincent is a native of Syracuse, New York, and has been writing for many years. She has won numerous literary contests and has achieved publication in such magazines as Italiana Americana, The Birmingham Review, Poetry Motel, Falling Star, 3 Cup Morning, and other special publications through SUNY. Her credits and awards also infiltrate the Internet on such web sites as Real Eight View, Ascent, Underground Window, Dance With Words, and Writers on Line. Her first collection of poetry, entitled American Lie, is available in bookstores throughout the country. Coverings (a chapbook) is now available through Foothills Publishing. Marianne's second full-length poetry collection, 313's Child, will be available Summer 2005.