ashtray blvd.
frances uIn this carnival of falling leaves we are
making celebrities of ourselves
fashioned in tin foil & paraded
at the point of consumption
Loss-prevention scours the brain’s plastic
instrument, racing intimacy like trains
under the Schuylkill,
yours the pattern of empty sky
I’m living by leaps and bounds –
night I gathered in ashes on my shirt
I am a wimp?
The doorbell rings and rings
Your neighbors’ subtraction tallies the loss
in the wry calculus of the building code
I boomerang on smaller terms & pledge to know
all the fun that can befall a non-smoker