The Smell of Roses

I got lost today, three blocks from home,
walking to an address on Republican Street.
I stopped, looked around, hoping to find the familiar,
but I was luckier still: because instead, I saw
boys with sandwiches on a stoop, a long dark car
with Texas plates, stretched along a shaded curb.
In the clear acoustics of a sunny day, I heard
two dogs exchanging brags over a fence,
the staccato of Spanish-speaking women,
a lawnmower. I smelled the wet green that cut grass bleeds
and the soft lullaby of laundry. Lost, I found
that some journeys need no passport.

by Angela Reid