Sonnet #420

 The glue that binds the broken spines

Of books Will smell the same no matter what

The lines of math, and engineering, poems, wrath

Of gods, the lions of time will roar and all the spines

Will smell the same, these ghosts should not be breath

ing All the same, the smell of stories shifts 

with glues that ought to change: the spice that lifts

Up from the caravans, a bit of smoke for love and heath

Some turmeric and ginger for the dragon tales

And coffee and the earth itself for textbooks 

For space they find that cosmic dust that smells

Like life, and petrichor for resurrection and spooks

Change the smell of it, like we change covers and the words

Change the smell how we feel, and what we remember