My mother steals away to her back stairs
for a quiet smoke. I find her,
wiggle in close. The wooden step sighs.
She exhales hard, tosses her cigarette
in the ashtray of the yard, slips inside.
The bent butt is a broken bird,
the lipstick-stained filter a red wing tipped with ash,
or a folded crane made from burnt paper.
I pick up the still-lit butt, inhale
the flavor of exhaust, grind it out
on my bare foot. A warm red sore,
the start of infection, a secret tattoo,
that calls to me with every step.
The pile of butts a campfire,
abandoned, a thin line of smoke
dissipates from its center, then reappears
in the shape of something familiar,
a pigeon, or a dove.
Someone mentions Lucky Strikes years later,
and I remember how I swore
I’d never smoke, or shadow people
with my clingy, sticky love.
That’s not true. I do both,
sometimes at the same time.
