our clothes are perfumed
in the after effects
of the cigarettes
you and he share
as we drive down
unpaved paths in Iowa

bits of ash
slip past your seatbelt
to build new nests
tangled gray birds
in my beard's brambles

the wind splutters its dying breaths
as a Jeep Cherokee kicks up
specters of dust
and i sit in the backseat
forgotten
while second-hand smoke
leaks out half-cracked windows
fleeing your presence

i envy the particles
liberated from the confines
of your cancerous lungs
slipping free and disappearing
into the mourning light
rising with a ruddy sun
behind anguished hillocks