Sumptuous Six

Sumptuous Six

She lit

a cigarette,

and for

six minutes,

she stopped.

for all the world.

She brought

the first smoke

to the deepest

corners

of her yearning

lungs.

Sculpture of smolder

collapsed

in the air,

and she did

not move.

She marveled,

All the tricks

of life,

she’d seen,

or,

been part of,

she stood

there,

unmoving,

as a statue,

in a forgotten park.

Frozen,

save for her

inhalation,

and excision

of that blue

tobacco smoke.

Dangerously smart,

she thought,

she stood

so serene,

tanning from the inside out.

She planned,

and penned,

novels,

raced across oceans,

shaded in vineyards,

sunned outside,

near a Galapagos

tortoise.

She married

the man

that caught her

eye now,

they loved deeper

than all the deep seas.

Sensational sirocco.

During that

six minute stay,

below the gargoyles

guarding the

gaudy facade.

The orange ember,

chased the

yellow filter,

time ran out,

she coughed,

an essential cough,

her time returned,

ankles uncrossed.

The day came back,

her escape,

was thwarted,

the cigarette,

a ruse,

a lure,

outside, for

just six minutes…

This suicide,

was taking forever.

 gjh 10