After a few whiffs of another world
he decided to stay with the stench
of the present: Dumpster lids everywhere
rising like cakes, garbage scows
moving in long orderly lines
across the harbor … The olfactory-he loves it
even when it wafts wracking all points
of the compass. It’s always invisible
and takes its direction according to the whimsy
of wind, or fans, or the waves
of a hand. Cave dwellers knew it,
and dogs. … The bare smell
of dirt on cabbage, the snow-
on-your-arm smell. Even
in the abstract: fear-smell, like spit
on a knifeblade. And
what the worms inhale, and then
the smell of dew on barbed wire, the sweet
thick smell of sex, slick,
our lungs giddy and pink with it. … .
It’s not the world which is good or bad
and so we run our noses over everything.
Even the dumb have this sense.
After a Few Whiffs of Another World
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