I don't really understand this poem, but I love the sensory detail in it.  I can almost taste the orange oil.  Also, each word in this poem is uniquely beautiful.  It reads like music. 

A poem does not need to be understood so much as it needs to be experienced. This poem is quite an example of how undiluted description is potent; how the smallest number of words can evoke an enormous amount. “emperor” is my favorite of this batch of Slammables, simply because it displays a mastery of simplicity. It is beautiful. In five lines I extract so much information (with the help of the title). A person is now gone, someone that the speaker views as an "emperor." This poem is like this title word: concise, signifying great power. The voice is apparent in this piece, which is something of a feat. I get the sense that the speaker misses this "emperor:" "couldn't let them / sweep you quite away," it ends. I am curious about the interesting choices of dashes, rather than a line break, in the second to last line, and the non-capitalization throughout. The letter "i" is usually capitalized... but perhaps this has symbolic significance. After all, the speaker seems frail, alone, without this "emperor" ... in that case, I can see that the "i" ought to remain as it is.
Beautiful!

This is a very nostalgic poem. I especially love the last two lines -- they ring true and are very sad and beautiful. Thanks for submitting this.