Leftover

With the window covered
in plastic sheeting,
he felt as if he were
inside a plastic container,
like a leftover,
peering into the tallow
fog of the world.

— Lorrie Moore, "Debarking"
(New Yorker short story)

Scent

... they dug up the barbecue,
and a smell of meat and hot earth
spread over the patio
in a thin curtain of smoke
that enveloped them all
like the fog that drifts
before a murder ...

— Roberto Bolano, "2666"
(translated by Natasha Wimmer)