smoke

It is like using your imagination
only everything is real--
the dry certainty of the paper,
the scuff of fingers straying
off the mark. Even the warm wax
surety of your own flesh
feels plastic and resolute
as the dusk sinks in.
Reading out loud, only the words
seem so out of place, made up,
lost in the machinery of breath
and hope. So be still
while the ashtray is cluttered
and the smoke boils away.
Be still while that far horizon
sinks into the remembered and
the lost. Those fires in the distance
never meant for warmth.
What comfort is left belongs
with-in that sacred act of burning
rising above the ruins of the world.