It Would Be This

The table had just been polished
and the mist from the yellow
can lingered languid falling slower than the sun

If there were such a thing as a
clean ashtray, it would be this
amber glass piece set back down
carefully

I remember the moment she lived for and
now I live for these as well
a twelve hour shift at the factory
days off to clean
and sit
and smoke

whether the television is on or not,
whether the phone hums or buzzes
is all irrelevant
because I have no boots on my feet, no pipes slung over my shoulder, no iron-forged tools in my hand or wet cotton
grabbing me like a lover
desperately refusing to part
without my choice in the matter

If there were such a thing as satisfaction
it would be this, clean socks, table, drawers, an open pack of cigarettes set clumsily and spread open on the love seat, a cold summer breeze through the screen door, goosebumps on dry, clean flesh recently made darker by the sun with it's delicate soap smell dancing with the still hanging yellow can mist as I breath in and dry, cool, cotton lazily sprawled over my skin.

night will soon come
and with it, second wind
and dancing
but there is no thought of that now

She makes me feel like a fire
really, a fire,
I can't control words and burns
what is karma but a few turns
of the planet?

I'm going to be inspired
no matter what
I started a fire
then waxed non-poetic

and waned toward a dream.

we're fucked up
ashes falling from a cigarette end
like snowflakes
I was trying to build a fire for you
a fire with you
where the ashes would fall from higher
than us
like snowflakes

what is karma
but the death of me
and a bonfire turned to ash
and every new fire I try to start, I leave
I'm a cold-colored moon and my dancing
has become nothing more than white piano keys
playing tritones over and over again in a dark jazz club

Nowadays, She Just Throws Stars From a Distance

Your memories are like the smell of molasses in brown sugar
or maybe something greater
was it your tan skin
or the way you held yourself
with dignity and beauty as you absorbed the golden sun?

That was then

between then and now, a universe blew an expansion of stars
and all the colors and magic in their trails of the words you said and
didn't say when we were younger and playing in the dark

That was us

and now you throw stars at me from a distance
haunting me from far away, throw trails of comets from
your golden face

If you would jump, I would come
I would kiss you because
I never have and I would love

keep throwing stars at me from a distance, but don't stay distant too long,
I'm going to be one of those workers that dies young.