Cigarette

I saw you today

            standing at the bus stop

            smoking a cigarette.

The cigarette didn’t belong—

            it was like a picture

            someone had cut out of a magazine

            and glued, haphazardly,

                        to your mouth—

            crude, vulgar,

                        desecrating—

            because your face is still round,

                        like a child’s,

            and your eyes are still bright

                                                and warm.

You smile at me

with my disarrayed hair and low-cut shirt,

and I nod

as I walk by.

But I turn around and my eyes

            can’t leave the cigarette

                        dangling from your fingers.

I want to weep

            as ashes flutter

                        into the snow.

                                    --March 2^nd, 2001