“I want a poem about a bad date with a smoker.”
She dates with a subway stare
passing through the appetizers
like a soldier wading through a swamp
pushing reeds aside for the wine.
More and more the people nudging
clutching at her sleeves like ghosts
trying to push her smile out
haunting her with obscene jokes.
A Saturday date inside, but
she smokes with a Sunday fervor outside
forging a private atmosphere
with every grey breath she forms
so she climbs into her cigarette cloud
both hands digging down, like a hazelnut
burrowing past all colors
through the skull of the Earth
through the edge of her drowsy wine
into her heart- still warm on the plate,
for all that want to bite the black.