by Dante Silva

The bloom of burning leaves borne on the breeze
Of blustered breath and memories of the fire -
The cooling embers of the vaporous ease
With which the cigarette calm does inspire;
These wisps you kiss insipidly that grasp
Your skin and fingertips, and lungs
That burble as they fly up with a rasp
To sing to me in darkly honeyed tongues
Of smoke that smacked of paper, ash, and crumb
And dance of zephyrs, whorls in eddied air
That, though I came after the cloud of numb
Pirouette between the breaths you spare:
The taste is of the deep, distant, sublime
That speaks of sand, you, me, and No. 9