SIGNATURE SCENT
SIGNATURE SCENT
She sure don't smell like
Calvin Klein's "Obsession"
Cher's "Uninhibited"
or Coco Chanel's classic "Number Five"
She wears a perfume she makes herself
Out of slits in her skin
she oozes a one-of-a-kind liquid cosmetic
spreads it across her flesh, moistening her creases
Inside her body's own refineries
she distills her distinctive signature scent
From her pores and around each hair
she secretes vinegary acetic acid
She secretes variants of butyric acid
to human noses, a sign of spoiled butter
She secretes six-carboned caproic acid isomers
named for Capricorn the goat
Her armpits smell
not like Dial soap
not like Sure deodorant
Her armpits smell like hallucinogenic drugs
like lysergic acid, like dimethyltryptamine
Her armpits smell like hashish, like ayahuasca
Her armpits smell like an opium den
Her breasts smell like fennel in bloom
like calves in a barnyard
her breasts smell like goat's milk
like wet feathers, like moist soil
like liquid egg and sperm
Her belly smells like the undersides of mushrooms
Her belly smells like the rare earths
like lanthanum, dysprosium, neodymium
Her belly smells like holmium
like europium and gandolinium
Her belly smells like niobium
Beneath her skirt her soft derriere:
To me her derriere smells like the noble gases
Smells like argon, neon, radon
like xenon, krypton and helium
her derriere smells like some radioactive
yet-to-be-discovered unstable element
at the very bottom of the Periodic Table
If it be cliche'
to say she smell like the sea
then down there
she smell like cliche'
like submerged Atlantis, like Sinbad's cave
like the Black Lagoon, like Davy Jones's locker
Down there she smell like barnacle, kelp, anenome
Down there like bromine, brine, like iodine,
like birthday candles
Down there she smell like urine, like Uruguay,
like eucalyptus
Down there like chocolate, brown Crayola,
like horse manure
Down there she smell like the Esalen sulphur baths
smell like sulphur, like strontium and silver
like tin, like antimony, like mercury and lead
Down there she smell like the philosopher's stone
like prima materia, like alchemical gold
Down there she smell like
alchemical gold.
