You sit on the curb three
and a half
blocks from your house
no one on this street knows you
except me
but you don't know I know you
Though you love me because
I'm not your mother
or your girlfriend or maybe your male lover
I watch blue-gray smoke rings
compile in the air from your collinder of tobacco
What color is the smoke in your mind?
How insanity-tainted are your clouds?
Your dirty fingers hold the book
that you read three
and a half
blocks from your house
you read your life out of those pages
While I wonder what to write in mine
Maybe your second-hand smoke is getting to me
Maybe it's a good thing
What color are my clouds tainted?
It's 4:00 am and dawn is slow coming
your ashes are orange fireflies
as I watch you from my foggy window
you do not know me
But I love you because
you're not my father
or my boyfriend or maybe my female lover
I love you and your smoke rings
because you're both mine
Maybe three
and a half
blocks down your future I could be yours, too
But now I'll ponder the color of smoke clouds
as they mix in with the sunrise
and maybe I'll wonder why I'm always ecstatic
when I see your heated ashes
collide with the freezing morning
Maybe tomorrow I'll walk three
and a half
blocks with you 'til we get to a paradise
of cigarettes and poems