Clove (1):  the dried unopened flowerbuds of the tropical evergreen myrtaceous tree, Eugenia aromatica, used as a pungent fragrent spice.

The smell of damp winter shadows.  the way a cat looks, tail winding up around a leg - a dark, smug, self-gratifying expression.  it's cheeks dripping with scent.  the expelled breath of a room thats not had the curtains open in a long time.  a smell that remains on your skin, long after exposure.  flash, a bulb.

You used to smoke clove cigarettes.  i remember you licking your lips, long and slow, a tounge flicking up around the smooth curled-back edges.  the taste of cloves lingered there, didn't it? You would refresh the experience long after smoking it, a little moisture recharges the taste.

There was that time, down at the Occidental, ten of your closest friends, cosseted around, before being snapped by my eye.dismembered limbs akimbo, juxta/posed.  big hair, hightened lips.closet la la clothes.  flushed cheeks, lots of teeth.  and you in the middle with your legs apart, every vertebrae pressed up against the high back of the seat, an inky figure square to faded, crusty red brocade.  one leg straight, another bending forward.  and your chin pushed up, looking at the ceiling.  your neck.  that big expansive space, that private arena.  a finger could trace around your form and take you out of that plot.  but you, you were there,seemingly unacknowledging except for the vaguest expression of knowing pleasure alongside being pleased, lit up in the incandescent refraction of your own clove smoke.  la danse du diable.

and later, when I licked the new skin of your inner thigh.  I smelt it there too, mingling with your juices, and mine.  fuck running down your leg.  down from your vulva bulb.  was that a laugh? please tell me you were happy.  in one way, out the other.  you lent back and "oh fuck"ed.  exhale some more in time.  your hair and fuck in my hands.  i remember i dragged my nails from the underneath, feeling like i had you, along your flank.  all those multitudes of cells, under my nails.  nailed, or so I wanted.  mainly i remember the cleaved leaving.