In the time it would take
to smoke a cigarette
I wonder what it would be like
to still feel that

I wonder what it would be like
to pull one out
to place it in my mouth
to light it and inhale
and exhale a cloud across the dark
of an uneven parking lot
at night
with no one there but me

To see the smoke dissipate
like I will in a moment
when I get into my ordinary car
and take off to my ordinary house
like an ordinary
an unimportant man
just a man with no place
more important than him

To leave the city for the suburbs
and smoke one or more cigarettes
on the way home
To punch the gas two miles from the exit
and turn up X on the radio
“In the time it takes to smoke my cigarette”

To slow down before I get home

To turn off the radio
To sigh in the driveway
To go in and collapse and sleep
in my drunken clothes
vaguely sad
Gnawed at the moment
for fear of my lost angels
who did not appear
before I went to sleep

I wonder what it would be like
to feel now as I did that night
now that I’m smokeless
crippled a bit by the ending
waiting for me just around the
bend
broken and broke

In the time it takes to smoke
a cigarette
Forty five years go by and
still eaten by the thought
of what I must have missed
when I shrugged off the cold
just beginning that night
moved home sniffling
when I did the right thing
and left early and my whole life
shifted
just a bit

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T