Burn

Why I Never Started Smoking

We were at the 7/11 by my house

parked in your Mustang with the hood down when

you took out a box of Virginia Slims

and asked me if I smoked

“No,” I said “I don’t like the smell”

You shrugged and lit a fresh one for the road

It’s good you started driving then because

I couldn’t stand the smell of you, like my father

Waning like a morning moon

Through sandpaper chords and weary eyes

he wheezed his last goodbyes from his bed

the stench of his last smoke still

etched like invisible ink

on the tunnels of

his broken lungs

Why I Can’t Quit Smoking

When the fire escape creaks with my clumsy entrance

and windows slam on an alley draft

I want my lips on your papery body

slim and barely lit

to breathe you in like a mistress’s breath

Today, I lost my love, so I am

more than primed for rotting

To have you fill every part of me

And I’ll take it all: Cancer, yellow teeth, an untimely death

Just give me your word, your ghost inside my lungs

Stick with me, and I’ll keep you burning

Trading life away like poker chips

banking on the hope that

you’ll be there when she leaves

keeping me warm with no intention of

ever burning out

I Cry When I See Men on the Fields

What is it about high school

football players

Dressed in second skins and

rain soaked masks
Living our pastimes like
unpaid mercenaries 

Content to bleed

on newly cut grass

if it means they’ve got a chance at fame. No, a chance at relevance. War is much nicer to our boys than organized sports. At least in the trenches they wear their dreams without shame. They can cry because death is so much bigger than a loss to Avery High School. And I can cry for them because they fought for a

grand old flag

a high flying flag

waving with the

frailty of a dying man

Edges tattered like

Hand-me-down fatigues

Those stars and stripes

never looked so

cruel

as they did the day you came home, wrapped in mahogany and sealed in primer. We all wept because you had lost. And it was okay. It was noble. All fields hold dying dreams of crying men but some dreams are more heroic than others and high school trophies and touchdowns are not. When I lowered you into the ground, I wondered if

the grass still held

the memory of you before 

you left

Could it still taste your

teenage blood

that stained the fields with

simple dreams of

simple victories

*This poem was influenced by the writings of Sherman Alexie