Why had Andy chose to quit smoking?
He had no job,
                        no ambitions,
                                              no passions.
No reason for salient speculation on the beaming waters
of the immaculate Pacific horizon from those unaffordable balconies
you see in movies, with sports cars rushing toward them on
that unnamed California byway.

“**** them all,” he thinks, crinkling the now emptied package.
He'd rather be reformed and forgiven
            or punished for what he‘s done.

Not both.

Stretched on the rack for his failure.
To acquire a Malibu suite.
To cup silicone *******.

To fix the loose handle on their porch‘s door,
              and smile while reciting, “I do.”

“One more won’t hurt,” says Andy,
as the woman in his shirt wraps her hands
around the shoulders.
The cloud circles his head, as they laugh about the sunset.