After their space walks astronauts say their suits
have a smell of smoke with no easy comparison.
A slice of bread toasted well beyond perfection,
the odor of gunpowder after a single pistol shot,
a welder’s torch mending metal, piece by piece.
Some swear a hint of smoldering, like singed hair,
embers of a campfire on Labor Day at Devils Lake,
a cigarette, snuffed out in an ashtray, that lingers
long after a lover has walked out for the last time.
Possibly, the acrid scent of scorched brimstone
from a fire lit long before earth burst into being.

—Lynn Patrick Smith

JUDGE’S COMMENTS: “This poem tells us that the titular fragrance has ‘no easy comparison,’ but then tries a series of comparisons anyway—a layering of metaphor that helps us approach this unexplained scent from several angles at once. I enjoy the specificity of these comparisons, too—space smells not just like a snuffed-out cigarette, but the one that ‘lingers/long after a lover has walked out for the last time,’ connecting the mystery of the cosmos to the mysteries embedded in a human life.”