There was a sweetness to that fog
I still remember, like a perfume.
But there was malice in its midst.
Its purpose was in killing after all.

Yet we rode in and out of it
repeatedly, pumping pedals
in delirium  and drawing
deeply of it.
Flirting, though we
never would admit to it.

We didn’t know then of its
danger, since danger can’t outlive
the present for a ten year old.
We didn’t die then, so OK.

But I carry it within me
to this day, something lurking
in my bones and in my sinew.
Too late to kill,
it remains with me forever
like a bittersweet affair.

Donald Sellitti is retired after a thirty-eight-year career in research and teaching at a medical school. He has published extensively in medical journals, and has recently had poems published in Autumn Sky, MONO., The Alchemy Spoon, Better Than Starbucks, and Rat’s Ass Review, who nominated his work for a Pushcart Prize.