Cigarettes & Whiskey

I wonder if she still smokes

cigarettes to help her sleep

—or was that just a dream?

I thought she slept with smoky

hands, and I think I remember

us not kissing after she came in.

But then again, my memory is

deceiving these days, and those

evenings with her are nothing but a blur.

We swallowed six shots of whiskey

a night and shared smokes after sex

and seldom slept, but always kept the

Sabbath sacred.

Her son died in her stomach,

and she slipped off the surface of the

planet for a few seconds.

Like a slowly orbiting satellite,

she sent herself out into the skies

and sometimes I see her in my mind,

but she never saw her way back to me.

The world’s worst boomerang, she’d be.

Now I’m a man with yellow teeth

and wrinkly sheets and an unkempt

beard and messy hair and funny fears

like dying alone or growing old

or never having her back in my arms

to hold. I wonder if she still smokes

cigarettes to send her to sleep

—or if whiskey still wets her beak.