A poem I liked

Sometimes a verse just keeps coming back to visit my thoughts. I read this poem in The New Yorker years ago, and thanks to Google, here it is.

Agua de Colónia

The sharp smell of cheap eau-de-cologne,
agua de colonia, will call it back:
every aspect of the lonely summer
in that other era, when I was young.

Watered pavements of narrow streets between
old buildings. Dim high-ceilinged cafés blue
with smoke from yellow-papered cigarettes.
The almost neutral taste of almond horchata
in tall glass beaded with moisture. I pressed
my wrists against its sides to cool my blood.

Molten sunlight through the shutter slats
corrodes the floor-tiles’ lozenges and arabesques.
Insomnia under a mosquito net.
My scent. My languor. My formal clothing.

- Ruth Fainlight
The New Yorker, February 7, 1994