Vent Vert by Jen Mediano


The one who told me in the flowered room, cabbage roses, cigarettes and Balmain Vent Vert, the original formula, the one you can sometimes find on eBay left behind on lacquered gold rimmed dressing tables or nestled deep in tiger oak drawers like doyennes contain ingenues like the registry replete with falsities ill fitting rings from then you whisper from then you whisper from when “Laura” played from the ballroom downstairs or from hotel nightstand radios holding my brooch your hat the pool of flowered calico between us could it have been when Charlie Parker played and you told me: listen listen listen and you traced twin scars with your index finger, you below me seeing things I never see listen to Laura you told me.

Jen Mediano’s work has appeared in LitHub, Public Seminar, Sand Hills Literary Magazine, and The Inquisitive Eater. She lives in Virginia.