remind me of the way it tastes on your lips
of the way the smoke is coy with you, holds itself around your mouth
for a lackadaisical second, the way you appear in shades
under the moonlight; is patient; is occurring slowly to my eyes

the smoke holds, breathes on its own accord
the lapse of lilac scent far removed from last summer in
the northern woods, teeming with a softness even in the ******* chirp of  birds nestled on birch

now it is gravel; it is jarring; it is the way you hesitate like cigarette smoke;
caught between leaving too quick or never leaving at all