Two packs a day and
Another waiting in the kitchen.
Oh, and a reefer for the summer days
Drawn out like a sour note.
The tar in your lungs
Enough to pave a roof or
Fill every crack in my street.
Fingers yellowed and pigment gone,
Looking like a tribesman with a
Dykish cut and a turquoise mascot
About your neck.
Your cigarette, like a gestural tool,
Waving it around as you speak,
The cherry dropping off the end
Like the bombshell you used to be.
And my mother, a girl in your shadows,
Trying to play catch up with the “perfect”
image
You were finished with, depicted
In the photos now the color of the
Sun brewed tea you sip.
An aging woman
Past her due...
