By Nels Hanson
I’ve read that every human family has
a smell but prefers the odors of other
families to its own. One butterfly in
Africa would agree, say, “I’ve become
my scent I’ve changed.” Zulu Blues
exude the fragrance that unwary ants
recognize as belonging to their brood.
They carry the caterpillar to the nest,
appear unconcerned as it devours a
colony whose scent it stole. Orchids
use aroma to deceive. Beguiling wasps,
bees and others to spread their pollen
some species took color and shape of
female hexapods, emit their irresistible
perfume and with males in thrall they
copulate. Many sensing wasps prefer
a flower’s musk to a lover’s and leave
in mid-embrace an insect for an orchid.
Nels Hanson has worked as a farmer, teacher, and contract writer/editor. His fiction received the San Francisco Foundation’s James D. Phelan Award, Pushcart Prize nominations in 2010, 2012, and 2014, and has appeared in Antioch Review, Black Warrior Review, Southeast Review, and other journals. Poems appeared in Word Riot, Oklahoma Review, Pacific Review, and other magazines, and are in press at Sharkpack Review Annual, The Straddler, Stoneboat, Meat for Tea, Insert Lit Mag Here, and The Mad Hatter’s Review. Poems in Outside In Literary & Travel Magazine and Citron Review have been nominated for 2014 Pushcart Prizes.
