Church smells like the perfume counter, any denomination, any brand (the mall, attack of the attacking things, tacky liberated souls). Aficionados stand at attention with tiny hoses in their hands and this is your chance to walk by without so much as glancing in their direction but you can't do it when you start trying too hard, the culture dies. The Portuguese are honest and call them "cultes" without flinching and we all know that smell memory is the strongest, convinced without even trying to be like deja-vu, like I already knew, like legions of counter-countdowns, (you are the man, you are my other country) more like legends, things that gather ever so lightly so as not to end, so as endlessness matters to the vain and the humble alike, and in equal amounts, and for opposite reasons, the creator has a master plan, that we may not interrupt with the literal voluptuousness of worship, or the abstract cowardice of indifference, that we may remain amused in the stiff futures of our forgone utopias we won't be visiting in public, but late at night when Mister Jones opens the door thinking he hears her talking, to someone, she is still on her knees peeking into her own clasped hands, the lore goes to the lord seer who chases spooks and idols into the choked-up fumes of their own psyches where they speak the propaganda of cartoons and pantomime and call-me-sometime, linear zygote kindness of no scripture or the poor guy in the front is dressed like a professional duck, undressing like a prisoner and the kids in front playing double-dutch are counting-up and up until the girl between the ropes has to trip on purpose, just to get out
